Powell’s calmness buoys stock market

Fed chairman says Wall Street more in sync with his thinking

NEW YORK — Wall Street rallied Tuesday after the Federal Reserve signaled last week’s stunningly strong jobs report won’t by itself change where interest rates are heading, as some investors had feared.

The S&P 500 climbed

1.3 percent following a shaky day where stocks pinballed between losses and gains as Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave his first public comments since raising rates last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 265 points, or 0.8 percent, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.9 percent.

High inflation and how high the Fed will take interest rates to combat it have been at the center of Wall Street’s wild movements for the last year. Powell said Tuesday that progress is being made on inflation, though a long battle remains.

That echoed similar comments he made last week, after the Fed approved its smallest increase to interest rates since March. But that was before a jolting jobs report Friday showed U.S. employers added a third of a million more jobs than expected last month.

The shocking show of strength raised concerns about upward pressure on inflation and worries the Fed may end up keeping rates higher for longer, as it has been warning. Higher rates can drive down inflation but also hurt the economy and investment prices.

But Powell said Tuesday at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., that the market’s big moves since the jobs report have gotten it closer to in sync with the Fed’s thinking. Not only did stocks fall, Wall Street raised its forecast for how high the Fed will take rates by the summer.

Investors also reduced bets that the Fed may cut rates later this year. Rate cuts can goose the economy and act like steroids for markets.

“We have a significant road ahead to get inflation down to 2 percent,” which is the Fed’s target, Powell said Tuesday. “There’s been an expectation that it will go away quickly and painlessly. I don’t think that’s at all guaranteed.”

Powell also said that if more jobs reports or inflation data come in way above expectations, the Fed may ultimately raise rates even higher than it’s been saying.

On Tuesday, the S&P

500 rose 52.92 to 4,164.00, the Dow gained 265.67 to 34,156.69 and the Nasdaq rose 226.34 to 12,113.79.

Treasury yields have zoomed higher recently on expectations for a firmer Fed. They held relatively steady Tuesday.