Wall St rises as Fed’s Powell steers clear of monetary policy outlook

Broadcom falls on report of Apple plan to replace chip Indexes: Dow 0.08%, S&P 0.07%, Nasdaq 0.16%

Jan 10 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Tuesday as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell refrained from commenting on the outlook for monetary policy, with the focus turning to an upcoming inflation reading scheduled for later this year week.

Powell’s remarks, which offered no clues about the Fed’s plans for future tightening, came as a big relief after two other policymakers on Monday injected a note of caution on the interest rate outlook.

“He (Powell) has not disrupted the market in any way, and the fact that he emphasizes the need for policy independence while dealing with inflation is definitely a positive for the markets,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities. New York.

Traders continued to bet on a 25 basis point rate hike at the US central bank’s next policy meeting in February, with the first terminal rate just below 5% by June.

Markets have been hoping the Fed could soon signal an end to its rate-hike cycle following recent signs of a slowdown in the US economy, even as policymakers reiterated the central bank’s priority to get inflation under control.

“The Fed has a little more tightening to do,” said David Russell, vice president of market intelligence at TradeStation Group, adding that Thursday’s inflation report will be crucial in shaping interest rate expectations.

The much-anticipated consumer price index (CPI) report from the US Labor Department is expected to show some moderation in year-over-year prices in December.

The Fed’s aggressive monetary policy tightening to curb decades of high inflation hit US stocks in 2022, with the three major indexes posting their biggest annual declines since 2008.

Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said on Tuesday that the US central bank will need to raise interest rates further to combat high inflation.

Among major S&P 500 sectors, retailers ( .SPXRT ) rose 0.8% to lead, while consumer discretionary stocks ( .SPLRCD ) rose 0.2%, with Amazon.com Inc ( AMZN.O ) bringing gains to both sub-indices.

Healthcare stocks ( .SPXHC ) rose 0.5% and were also a big boost to the benchmark S&P 500 index.

At 11:59 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) was up 28.41 points, or 0.08%, at 33,546.06, the S&P 500 (.SPX) was up 2.71 points, or 0.07%, to 3,894.80 The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) rose 17.25 points, or 0.16%, to 10,652.90.

Broadcom Inc ( AVGO.O ) fell 3.4% after a report that Apple Inc ( AAPL.O ) plans to replace a Broadcom chip in its devices with an in-house design in 2025.

Advances outnumbered decliners by a 1.17-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.62-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index posted a new 52-week high and no new lows, while the Nasdaq posted 37 new highs and 20 new lows.

Reporting by Ankika Biswas, Amruta Khandekar and Johann M Cherian in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Shounak Dasgupta

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