Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 closed up 0.4%, and was nearing a fresh high for 2023. The S&P 500 and MSCI’s all-country index are both up over 8% this month alone, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 11%.
Markets were still digesting minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting, which revealed that central bank officials agreed they would proceed carefully and only raise interest rates if progress in controlling inflation faltered.
Indeed, many investors now seem confident the Fed may be done raising rates for this cycle, and are eyeing the middle of next year for when the central bank may start to make cuts.
Even Nvidia’s selloff following its results couldn’t dampen Wednesday’s mood. After soaring well over 200% this year, Nvidia shares ended down 2.5% on Wednesday amid fears that widening U.S. chip curbs would sap growth in China.
Aside from Nvidia, other members of the Magnificent Seven megacap group rallied on Wednesday, with Amazon gaining nearly 2% and Alphabet and Microsoft up over 1%.
A Reuters poll of stock market experts found most key global stock indexes are forecast to rise modestly over the coming year.
