Wall Street surged on Thursday following a weak start, one day after the Federal Reserve paused its rate hikes (if only temporarily).
- The Dow rose 428 points, or 1.2%, to 34,408.
- The S&P 500 rose 53 points, or 1.2%, to 4,425. That is the benchmark index's sixth straight winning session, its longest streak since November 2021, per the Wall Street Journal.
- The Nasdaq rose 156 points, or 1.1%, to 13,782.
Homebuilder Lennar helped lead the benchmark S&P 500 with a gain of 3.6% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected, per the AP. It also gave a stronger-than-expected forecast for upcoming deliveries, saying customers are accepting the “new normal” of higher interest rates. Kroger, meanwhile, sank to one of the market’s sharper losses after reporting slightly weaker revenue for the latest quarter than expected. It fell 2.9% despite also reporting stronger profit than expected and reaffirming many of its financial forecasts for the year.
Meanwhile, the trend in markets has been solidly upward. The S&P 500 is up about 23% since hitting a bottom last October, as the economy has so far avoided a recession and inflation has come down from its peak last summer. Investors are facing a relatively quiet period of economic news ahead of the next Fed decision on interest rates in late July. That could make it tricky to gauge the impact of high interest rates and still-high inflation. The next update for the Fed's preferred inflation measure, which tracks personal consumption and expenditures, will be released on June 30 by the Commerce Department.
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