US stocks climbed to fresh records Thursday, adding to Wednesday’s gains in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates unchanged and its outlook for three interest rate cuts this year. Investors pushed stocks higher as the central bank reiterated its outlook for three interest rate cuts in 2024, although the median projection for the benchmark policy rate on the Fed’s dot plot increased slightly.
Immediately after the decision, the odds of a June rate cut jumped from 55% to 70%. Early Thursday, that was pared to about 62%, per CME’s FedWatch Tool.
“The committee wants to see more data that gives us higher confidence that inflation is moving toward 2%,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in the post-meeting press conference, adding that policymakers will continue to monitor incoming data closely before the next meeting.
Despite February’s hotter-than-expected inflation reading, the balance between consumer prices and employment appears to be improving, Powell said.
“Our main takeaway from the March FOMC meeting is that the Fed has fully embraced the positive supply-side narrative,” Bank of America strategists wrote in a note after the Fed decision. “Significant upward revisions to growth did not lead to similar declines in unemployment or substantially firmer inflation. Despite projecting much stronger growth, the Fed sees the disinflation trend as remaining in place.”
Meanwhile, shares of Reddit will make their public debut on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RDDT. The stock was priced at $34 per share for the IPO, the top end of its expected range which values the social media platform at about $6.4 billion.
The company announced earlier that it would allocate 8% of 22 million shares to certain users and moderators, though many on the platform had expressed disinterest in participating ahead of Wednesday’s pricing.
Here’s where US indexes stood as the market opened at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday:
– The S&P 500 was up 0.5% at 4,200.25
– The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4% at 34,000.00
– The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.6% at 14,000.00
Here’s what else is going on:
In commodities, bonds, and crypto:
– Oil prices were up. Brent crude was up 1.2% at $64.50 per barrel. WTI crude was up 1.5% at $61.00 per barrel.
– Gold was down 0.3% at $1,730.00 per ounce.
– The 10-year Treasury yield was up at 1.65%.
– Bitcoin was up 2.0% at $58,000.00.
