NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks finished higher yesterday, rising after Federal Reserve (Fed) minutes maintained a tough line on inflation, while a services industry survey showed slowing but steady growth.
Fed policymakers reiterated their willingness to continue raising interest rates to tamp down price pressures in minutes recounting the central bank's big interest rate increase in June.
Market watchers said investors were pleased to see the tough line on inflation, although Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare noted the Fed’s stance was a restatement of its posture in recent statements.
“It’s more because it had been such a terrible first half of the year,” O’Hare said of yesterday’s gains. “We got so oversold in the month of June. The market is just looking for a ray of hope.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% at 31,037.68.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.4% to 3,845.08, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also climbed 0.4% to 11,361.85.
Stocks had been in the red prior to the minutes, after the Institute for Survey Management's (ISM) services index fell 0.6 percentage points to 55.3%.
Although business activity increased, new orders and deliveries decreased due to high inflation and ongoing global supply chain snarls, the ISM said. – AFP