New York: Wall Street stocks ended higher Friday, extending a positive run for equities after earlier stumbles as investors come to terms with the inevitability of more central bank interest rate hikes.
Many investors had viewed US stocks as oversold, in the wake of recent declines, with the Federal Reserve policies favoring aggressive policy tightening no longer generating fear.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller on Friday was the latest to reaffirm the hawkish stance to combat rising prices.
He warned that lowering inflation will take time, and said he supports another “significant increase” in the benchmark lending rate at the September 20-21 policy meeting.
Still, investors have become more optimistic about inflation.
“Economists are slightly lowering their inflation forecasts and that could mean the Fed won’t have to take rates above four percent,“ said Oanda’s Edward Moya.
The S&P 500 finished at 4,067.36, up 1.5 percent for the day and 3.6 percent for the week, snapping a three-week losing stream.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2 percent to close at 32,151.71, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.1 percent to 12,112.31.
Among individual equities, cloud security company Zscaler shot up 21.9 percent after reporting a 61 percent increase in quarterly revenue and projecting a more than 35 percent increase in annual revenues for its next fiscal year. – AFP