NEW YORK, Oct. 5 (UPI) — Wall Street kicked off the week Monday with significant gains as investors believed it less likely that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates before the end of the year, as it has been speculated.
The Dow climbed 304 points by the end of trading Monday — a gain of nearly 2 percent — to close at 16,776. The tech-weighted Nasdaq rose 73 points to finish at 4,781. The S&P 500 gained 35 points to close at 1,987.
“The market expectation for Fed lift-off was delayed further,” investing houseBarclays told clients before the markets opened Monday, saying it now expects the interest rate hikes in the second quarter of 2016.
Part of what prompted the change in forecast is the shortfall of new jobs in September, less than 200,000 for the second straight month — leading some analysts to speculate that perhaps the domestic economic growth isn’t as strong as previously believed.
The Fed elected last month to keep key interest rates near zero, where they have remained since the financial crisis in 2009. Chairman Janet Yellen said the central bank expected to raise those rates before the end of 2015, based on several market indicators such as inflation.
Monday continued a multi-day surge for the indexes. The Dow gained 200 points Friday, giving the index its first back-to-back gain of more than 200 points since August.
Shares of Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.6 percent and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong rallied 1.6 percent Monday.
