US Market gains ahead of Fed meeting

20 Sep 2022 , 09:33 AM

The US stock market finished choppy session firmly positive after fluctuated in and out of the neutral line on Monday, 16 September 2022, amid caution ahead of the 13 central bank meetings this week that are certain to see borrowing costs rise across the globe and some risk of a super-sized hike from the Federal Reserve. At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 197.26 points, or 0.64%, to 31,019.68. The S&P500 index rose by 26.56 points, or 0.69%, to 3,899.89. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index added 86.62 points, or 0.76%, to 11,535.02. Total 9 of11 major sectors of the S&P 500 advanced, with materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, financials, and utilities issues all falling more than 1%. The Federal Reserve meets on Wednesday while the Bank of England (BoE) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will announce their monetary policy decisions on Thursday. The Bank of Japan is also meeting on Thursday. Wall Street remains focused on inflation and the Federal Reserves attempt to lower prices by aggressively raising interest rates. Investors have priced in at least another 75 basis point increase in rates at the end of a 2-day Federal Open Market Committees meeting on Wednesday, meanwhile markets split on whether the Bank of England will go by 50 or 75 basis points. Investors largely shrugged off a report from the National Association of Home Builders showing U.S. homebuilder confidence declined for the ninth consecutive month in September. The report showed the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index slid to 46 in September from 49 in August. Retailers and banks made solid gains. Airline stocks showed a substantial rebound after falling sharply in the previous session. Steel stocks also saw significant strength following recent weakness. Considerable strength was also visible among gold stocks despite a modest decrease by the price of the previous metal. Housing, chemical and financial stocks also saw notable strength on the day. Health care stocks slipped and tempered gains elsewhere in the market, while weakness remained visible among computer hardware stocks. Among Indian ADR, ICICI Bank added 0.75% to $22.90, Azure Power Global dropped 4.7% to $6.25, HDFC Bank added 1.8% to $66.07, Tata Motors added 1% to $27.07, and Dr Reddys Labs added 1% to $51.11. WNS Holdings added 0.3% to $83.21, Wipro added 0.6% to $4.99, and INFOSYS was up 0.2% at $17.41. Powered by Capital Market – Live News