July 27 (UPI) — U.S. markets rallied Wednesday as the Federal Reserve again hiked interest rates by .75% and Chairman Jerome Powell sought to ease recession concerns.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 436.05 points, or 1.37%, the S&P 500 climbed 2.62% and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 4.06%, with markets reaching their highs after Powell shared the latest news from the central bank’s two-day policy meeting.
Powell said after the rate hike decision that the central bank is “strongly committed to bringing inflation back down and is moving expeditiously to do so.”
He also stated firmly that he does not “think the U.S. is currently in a recession.”
“The reason is there are too many areas of the economy that are performing too well,” he said.
Tech stocks were some of the biggest winners Wednesday, with shares of Google parent Alphabet rising 7.66% and Microsoft gaining 6.69%, despite both companies reporting earnings and revenue Tuesday that fell short of expectations.
Facebook parent Meta also shared that it missed on earnings after the bell, reporting $2.46 earnings per share compared to Wall Street’s average forecast of $2.54. Revenue came in at $28.8 billion, just short of the $28.9 billion analysts expected.
Shares of Meta were up 6.55% during regular trading, but fell more than 2% after hours.
Retailers also rallied after falling in the previous session, with Walmart gaining 3.78%, Ross rising 2.96%, Kohl’s increasing 2.73% and Costco climbing 2.03%.
Investors also are looking ahead to the second-quarter GDP report set for release Thursday.
