Wall Street celebrated after comments from the head of the US Federal Reserve (Fed), who acknowledged the possibility of a slowdown in the pace of interest rate hikes as early as December.
After Powell’s words, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 3.09% to 4,080.11 point, after it ended the month of November, recording its second consecutive monthly gain, as we have not seen since August of last year.
In turn, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day adding 2.18% to 34589.77 pointsthus obtaining a score 20% higher than the minimum recorded on September 30.
The Nasdaq Technology Index rose 4.41% to 11468 pointswith a maximum renewal of about two months.
Markets have been moved by Powell’s words. The Fed Chairman – in keeping with minutes from the central bank’s recent monetary policy meeting – acknowledged the need to slow the pace of rate hikes and pointed to the December meeting as the date when that could happen.
However, Powell stressed that one should wait for further increases in the benchmark rate to push inflation towards the 2% target. History warns against premature relief [do endurecimento] Monetary policy. We’ll stay on track until the job is done.”
Thus, the market expects that, interrupting the sequence of the last four consecutive increases of 75 basis points, the federal funds rate will rise by only 50 basis points at the next meeting of the US central bank, which is scheduled for December 13-14. The key interest rate is now set in a range of 3.75% to 4%.
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