NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks rallied Friday to close out March and the first quarter of the year with gains that looked uncertain just two weeks ago when Wall Street was reeling from turmoil.
The S&P 500 rose 1.4% to take a 3.5% gain for the month. It also closed in on a second quarter of winnings in a row with the most bitter slide last year amid concerns that the growth of health care should be kept under control.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 415 points, or 1.3%, while the Nasdaq composite rose 1.7%. For the Nasdaq, the big jump in technology stocks led to a 16.8% gain for the quarter, the best since the surge caused by the coronavirus crash in spring 2020.
Friday’s earnings report showed inflation across the United States delayed Februaryalthough the prince belongs to history. A continued slowdown could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to ease back on interest rates jacking them deeper for a year at a terrible pace.
Threats of higher rates have been made after the stock market struggles, starting in 2022. High rates can cut inflation, but only by bluntly slowing down the entire economy it raises. risk of withdrawal. They also fetch prices for stocks, bonds, and other things.
A flurry of economic reports earlier in the year had suggested persistently high inflation had raised concerns that rates would be higher for longer.
Recession hasn’t hit the economy yet, at least not yet, but the pressure of better rates helped the economy rebound earlier this month.
The second and third-largest US bank failure in the history of the market after the depositors rushed withdraw his money Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. It has pushed investors to put tougher scrutiny on banks globally in the hunt for weak links.
They have very strong actions by the regulators when you have helped build some confidence. Recently, traders have also built up bets that the banking system’s woes will force the Fed to stop hiking rates soon and even start cutting rates later this year.
The same method in the market seems to be that “H winked and off the unions in April” before waiting to see if there is a recession or a new alarm about the real commercial situation or something else to expect in the second half of the year, investment strategist Michael. Hartnett wrote the BofA global report.
Expectations of an easier H have helped Big Tech stocks in particular because high-growth stocks are seen as some of the biggest beneficiaries of lower rates. That’s helping to support the S&P 500, where big tech stocks play a leading role because of their size. Apple, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet each posted double-digit earnings for March.
Technical forces have helped to mask weakness in other parts of the market, which are still in the month, but play a smaller role in the indices, such as stocks or smaller financial companies.
Some professional investors on Wall Street say expectations for rate cuts are premature and could set the market for disappointment. Cuts act like steroids to markets, but they will only come if the economy looks to be in serious trouble.
In the meantime, Hed has intimated that the rates will be kept stable at one time before the end of this year. Friday’s data suggests that may still be the case, economists said.
“Elevated supply prices combined with strong job growth that restore incomes and supporting demand should keep the U.S. on track for further rate hikes in the coming meetings,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
What makes H’s upcoming decisions particularly tricky is that reliance on the industry could be inconvenient? such as hikes to their interest if the banks withdraw from lending. That could put a damper on hiring and economic growth.
All of the drastic changes in expectations that H is going to make have meant historically large moves for Treasury yields in the bond market.
The results of the two-year Treasury zoomed through the most banging moves. It was sitting above 5% at its highest level since 2007 earlier this month, as investors braced for the Fed to keep rates higher for longer.
Then quickly below 3.60% for bets built H to lift due to reliance on industries. Analysts said the move was so intense that so many bets were stacked on the same side: for yields to climb higher.
Give them something to stand on. It fell to 4.04% on Friday from 4.12% late Thursday.
10-year yield, that helps rates for mortgages and other important loans, 3.48% came from 3.55%. Acerius, too, twisted through the quarter, but not so much as to give way to the bima. It was sitting above 4% earlier in the month.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 58.48 to 4,109.31 on Friday. The Dow gained 415.12 to 33,274.15, and the Nasdaq jumped 208.44 to 12,221.91.
In foreign markets, stocks across Europe rose modestly after a report showed inflation in the 20 countries that use the euro currency slowed to the slowest of the year, although food costs were still rising.
Stocks in Shanghai rose modestly after a Chinese factory report said activity in March was more than expected. They also gained much of the rest of Asia.
AP Business Writers Joe McDonald and Matt Ott contributed.
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