Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking at the Brookings Institution, reaffirmed that the central bank could begin moderating its pace of rate hikes as soon as December, when its policymaking committee is due to hold its next meeting.
Powell’s comments sent Treasury yields sharply lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 3.65 percent from 3.75 percent late Tuesday. The yield on the two-year note, which tends to track market expectations of future Fed action, fell to 4.34 percent. It was trading at 4.48 percent late Tuesday and had been as high as 4.53 percent shortly before Powell’s speech.
Major indexes have been unsteady all year as the economy and financial markets dealt with stubbornly hot inflation and the Fed’s attempt to cool high prices with aggressive interest rate increases. More than 95 percent of the stocks in the benchmark S&P 500 index notched gains Wednesday, with technology companies leading the gains. Apple rose 4.9 percent and Microsoft jumped 6.2 percent.