Live Chat

Wall Street.

Dollar index up ahead of last Fed meeting in 2023, markets expect central bank to hold

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (SJIA) achieved both an intraday high and a record closing on Wednesday following signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) indicating a potential shift to interest rate cuts in 2024.

The Dow rose by 512.30 points, or 1.4%, closing at 37,090.24, surpassing 37,000 intraday for the first time in history, according to Dow Jones Market Data. It reached as high as 37,094.85 during Wednesday's trading.

The Federal Reserve maintained its key policy rate within the 5.25% to 5.5% range — a 22-year high —and projected three rate cuts in 2024 based on its revised dot-plot forecast.

During an afternoon press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed is "not likely" to hike further, adding that the central bank is "very focused on not making the mistake of keeping rates too high for too long.” Powell's comments drove all three major equity benchmarks up by at least 1.3% on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 index ended the day with a 1.4% gain, while the Nasdaq Composite Index also finished 1.4% higher, marking their biggest daily increases in close to a month, as per Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit fresh closing highs for the year. The S&P 500 is now up 22.6% for the year to date, while the Nasdaq is up 40.7% in that period and the Dow is up 11.9%.

Choose your points of movement

Сalculate your hypothetical P/L (aggregated cost and charges) if you had opened a trade today.

Market

Shares Search
Shares
Index
Commodity
Bonds
Crypto
ETFs
Currency

Instrument

Search
Clear input
Occidental
Prosus N.V.
Porsche AG
Hermes
CAT
Thermo Fisher
Nikola Corporation
Tilray
Shell plc (LSE)
Skillz Inc
Iberdrola
DeltaAir
CrowdStrike Holdings
Golar LNG
Applied Materials
Snowflake
Royal Bank Canada
Amazon.com
Spotify
Exxon Mobil
CCB (Asia)
McDonald's
Campari
GameStop
Netflix
ON Semiconductor
Costco
Dave & Buster's
Delivery Hero SE
LUCID
Continental
Zoom Video Communications
Schlumberger
Virgin Galactic
Upwork Inc.
Cameco
JP Morgan
Fuelcell
Rivian Automotive
XPeng Inc
Wal-Mart Stores
Trade Desk
Blackstone
Vodafone
Aptiv PLC
L'Oreal
Target
Rio Tinto
Sartorius AG
British American Tobacco
Qorvo
ASOS
Cisco Systems
Nel ASA
Arista
Airbus
Apple
Pfizer
AMC Entertainment Holdings
ASML
Hubspot
Teladoc
Starbucks
SMCI
Canopy Growth
Wish.com Inc
Lockheed Martin
ProSiebenSat.1
IAG
AbbVie
Marston's
Baidu
Teleperformance
Norwegian Air Shuttle
Airbus Group SE
HSBC HK
Block
Annaly Capital
Abbott
LVMH
American Express
Novavax
GoPro
Siemens
Total
SIG
Pinterest Inc
Taiwan Semi
Etsy
Amgen
SONY
3D Systems
UPS
BlackBerry
Gen Digital Inc
Xiaomi
Quanta Services
Unity Software
NVIDIA
Anglo American
Palantir Technologies Inc
Fresnillo
Deere
Rolls-Royce
Porsche
Uber
Vir Biotechnology
American Airlines
ROBLOX Corp
Macy's
FirstRand
easyJet
DISNEY
Aurora Cannabis Inc
BP
Adidas
Boeing Co
Vonovia
Coca-Cola Co (NYSE)
Home Depot
General Electric
Coinbase Inc
ALIBABA HK
Philip Morris
General Motors
PayPal
UniCredit
II-VI
BASF
Kraft Heinz
Alphabet (Google)
Palo Alto Networks
Plug Power
Li Auto
Oracle
Roku Inc
UiPath Inc
Upstart Holdings Inc
F5 Networks
Infinera
Inditex
ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd
Deutsche Bank
Hammerson
IBM
JD.com
Barrick Gold
Lemonade
MerckCo USA
Infosys
Invesco Mortgage
Comcast
Santander
Accenture
Anheuser-Busch Inbev
Visa
Mastercard
T-Mobile
SAP
Wayfair
Beyond Meat
Kuaishou
CarMax
Tesla
Lyft
Medtronic
Adobe
Morgan Stanley
Workday Inc
Blackrock
Vipshop
Meta (Formerly Facebook)
Linde PLC
Micron
Lululemon
Ceconomy
Chipotle
Gilead
Naspers
Bristol Myers
The Cheesecake Factory
Glencore plc
British American Tobacco
ChargePoint Holdings Inc
Twilio
Intel
Lloyds
CNOOC
Electrolux
Wells Fargo
Sea
PG&E
Fedex
Citigroup
Peloton Interactive Inc.
eBay
Microsoft
JnJ
Bilibili Inc
Trump Media & Technology Group
AIA
Nasdaq
Air France-KLM
Allianz
Lithium Americas Corp
Procter & Gamble
Qualcomm
AMD
New Oriental
MercadoLibre.com
Mondelez
Lumentum Holdings
Two Harbors Investment aration
AstraZeneca
Norwegian Cruise Line
Unilever
GoHealth
PepsiCo
Barclays
PETROCHINA
Goldman Sachs
Eli Lilly
HSBC
Cellnex
Berkshire Hathaway
Jumia Technologies
HDFC Bank
RTX Corp
Bayer
Bank of America
Chevron
ADT
DoorDash
Marriott
Nike
AT&T
GSX Techedu
Robinhood
Telecom Italia
Deliveroo Holdings
TUI
Freeport McMoRan
Toyota
BioNTech
Airbnb Inc
Alibaba
Verizon
Nio
Eni
Ford
Volkswagen
UnitedHealth
Shopify
China Life
Snap
Christian Dior
Conoco Phillips
Lufthansa
Tencent
Moderna Inc
Salesforce.com
Broadcom
Diageo
Toro
Cinemark

Account Type

Direction

Quantity

Amount must be equal or higher than

Amount should be less than

Amount should be a multiple of the minimum lots increment

USD Down
$-

Value

$-

Commission

$-

Spread

-

Leverage

-

Conversion Fee

$-

Required Margin

$-

Overnight Swaps

$-
Start Trading

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

All positions on instruments denominated in a currency that is different from your account currency, will be subject to a conversion fee at the position exit as well.

Fed statement: Powell surprises markets with “remarkably dovish” message

Prior to the Fed meeting on Wednesday, Markets.com Chief Market Analyst Neil Wilson wrote that the Fed was unlikely to appear overly dovish to avoid backing market assumptions of early interest rate cuts:

“[...] signs are the Fed will not push back 100% against the market pricing right now. It doesn’t want to knock itself into a corner with an overly hawkish message now that needs to be rolled back in a couple of months’ time. It also doesn’t want to throw its lot in with the market’s assumptions for aggressive and early rate cuts next year and unleash the market dogs”.

Powell’s speech seemed to have the opposite effect on stock markets.

Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta, reacted to the meeting in a comment to the Reuters news agency:

"The statement is telling us that the Fed is seeing what the markets have already started to discount, that you're going to have inflation back to normal without a recession. We kind of hoped it was going to be this, but we didn't really think it was”.

Kathryn Rooney Vera, chief market strategist at StoneX Group, told MarketWatch that Jerome Powell sounded “remarkably dovish” in his press conference on Wednesday. The momentum appears to support a “Santa Claus rally” for stocks, according to her comments. The “Santa Claus rally” refers to the stock market’s tendency to push higher in the final five trading sessions of a calendar year and the first two sessions of the subsequent year.

Despite the apparent optimism, Rooney Vera said concerns remain about whether the rally is sustainable in the next 12 to 18 months, as risks of a recession aren’t fully off the table.

Interest rate cuts: Fed funds futures traders bet on easing in May 2024

Wednesday’s rally is “all about the Fed,” Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, told MarketWatch, pointing to the interest rate cuts now earmarked for 2024.

“The question is when do the rate cuts begin? That is still the unknown. But what Powell said was sweet to the markets’ ears”.

U.S. interest rate futures traders are now pricing in a 58% likelihood that the Fed will deliver its first interest rate cut in March 2024, according to the CME FedWatch tool. The odds of a rate cut in May have gone up to 90% as opposed to 80% just before the announcement, as per LSEG’s Fedwatch.

Josh Jamner, investment strategy analyst at ClearBridge Investments, wrote in emailed comments to MarketWatch:

“Powell was understandably hesitant to declare victory with regard to avoiding a recession. But the lack of pushback on easing financial conditions as inflation continues its trend lower should be enough to continue to support the Santa Claus rally for the time being”.

The Fed’s dovish comments saw the DXY dollar index drop to 102.89, down 0.83% on the day — its lowest level since November 30.

When considering shares and indices for trading and price predictions, remember that trading CFDs involves a significant degree of risk and could result in capital loss.

Past performance is not indicative of any future results. This information is provided for informative purposes only and should not be construed to be investment advice.

Latest news

Nikkei index tumbles by close to 5% on Ichiba win

Monday, 30 September 2024

Indices

Japan’s Nikkei index skids on Ichiba win, China stocks surge

Sunday, 29 September 2024

Indices

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has sold $713M worth of company stock

Sunday, 29 September 2024

Indices

Stock market today: Dow hits record high ahead of key jobs report

Sunday, 29 September 2024

Indices

IEA predicts a significant surplus in oil production capacity by 2030

Live Chat