Wall Street rallies to records

NEW YORK — U.S.stocks ral- lied to records Wednesday after the Federal Reserve indi- cated it’s likely to deliver the cuts to interest rates this year that Wa Street craves, despite

discouragingly high infla- tion reports.

The S&P 500 jumped 46.11 points, or 0.9%, to 5,224.62 and set an all-time high for a second straight day. It’s already n up 9.5% so far in this young ar, which is a bit better than the average for a full year over the past two decades.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 401.37, or 1%, to 39,512.13, and the Nasdaq composite roared 202.62 points higher, or 1.3%, to 16,369.41. Both also hit records.

Some of Wall Street’s nervousness coming into the day washed away after the Fed released a survey of its policy makers, which showed the median still expects the central bank to deliver three cuts to interest rates in 2024. That’s the same number as they had penciled in three months earlier, and expecta- tions for the relief that such cuts would provide are a big reason U.S. stock prices have set records.

The fear on Wall Street was that the Fed may trim the num- ber of forecasted cuts because of a string of recent reports that showed inflation remaining hotter than expected.

The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate at its highest level since 2001 to grind down inflation. High rates slow the overall economy by making borrowing more expensive and by hurting prices for investments.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he noticed the last two months’ worse-thanexpected reports, but they “haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation moving down gradually on a sometimes bumpy road towards 2%.”