Wall Street rises ahead of year's last barrage of rate hikes

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is rising Monday to open a week where central banks are likely to unload the year's final barrage of interest-rate hikes meant to drive down the world's painfully high inflation.

The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in afternoon trading, trimming its loss for the year to 16.9% The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 309 points, or 0.9%, at 33,785, as of 1 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

The main reasons for Wall Street's struggles for much of this year have been high inflation and the higher interest rates engineered to combat it. On Wednesday, markets expect the Federal Reserve to announce its last rate hike of the year following a blitzkrieg that began in March.

Higher rates slow the economy by design and risk causing a recession if they go too high, all while dragging down prices of investments. One upside for investors is that the Fed has hinted it will dial down the size of its rate hikes, leading to expectations for a more modest increase of 0.50 percentage points Wednesday.

That would follow four straight megahikes of 0.75 percentage points. Each was triple the Fed's usual move, and they brought the central bank's key overnight rate up to a range of 3.75% to 4% after starting the year at virtually zero.

Other central banks around the world are also likely to raise their own rates by half a percentage point this week, including the European Central Bank.

Any dial down in the size of rate hikes would mean less added pain for markets and the economy. Such hopes have helped stocks and bonds rally since midoctober, as investors have taken data reports to mean the worst of inflation has finally passed and would allow the Fed to ease up.

But expectations for a slowdown in rate hikes may also be setting some investors up for disappointment, if central banks signal this week they'll ultimately take rates higher than markets expect. While they aren't the clear majority of the market, many traders are betting on the Fed's overnight interest rate to top out at a range of 4.75% to 5% next year, for example.

Economists at Goldman Sachs expect Fed policy makers on Wednesday to signal their median expectation is for rates to hit a range of 5% to 5.25%, up by half a percentage point from their last projection.

Some investors also continue to make moves in anticipation of the Fed cutting interest rates during the second half of 2023. Rate cuts generally act like steroids for stocks and other investments, but the Fed has been insisting it plans to hold rates at a high level for some time to ensure the battle against inflation is won.

Even if inflation is indeed on its way down, the global economy still faces threats from the rate increases already pushed through. The housing industry and other businesses that rely on low interest rates have shown particular weakness, and worries are rising about the strength of corporate profits broadly.

“Inflation Data and Fed Is Yesterday's News; Focus on Earnings Risk” was the title of a report published Monday by strategists at Morgan Stanley.

The next big milestone for markets comes Tuesday, when the U.S. government releases the latest update on inflation at the consumer level. Economists expect to see inflation slowed to 7.3% last month from 7.7% in October. The data will arrive as the Fed begins its two-day policy meeting on what to do with interest rates.

Besides raising short-term rates, the Fed is also making other moves with its vast trove of bond investments that should effectively allow longerterm yields to rise.

The yield on the 10year Treasury, which helps set rates for mortgages and other economy-setting loans, rose to 3.62% from 3.59% late Friday. The two-year yield, which tends to more closely track expectations for the Fed, rose to 4.39% from 4.34%.

In overseas stock markets, Asian indexes fell amid signs of a surge in coronavirus infections in China. The country is in the midst of easing some of its

“ZERO-COVID” pandemic restrictions, which stifled the world's second-largest economy.

On Wall Street, Microsoft rose 1.9% and was the biggest single force lifting the S&P 500. The London Stock Exchange Group agreed to a 10-year deal where it will move data to Microsoft's cloud and spend at least $2.8 billion. Microsoft is also taking a 4% ownership stake in the company.

Shares in Horizon Therapeutics jumped 15% after Amgen announced it would acquire the biopharmaceutical company for about $26.4 billion.

Stocks of energy producers were also making big gains after the price of oil rose. Last week, crude prices scraped their lowest levels of the year on worries about a weakening global economy, which would mean less demand for energy.