NEW YORK, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks bounced back fiercely Wednesday, as investors were reassured by the Federal Reserve's minutes which signaled that the first rate hike may not come soon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 274.83 points, or 1.64 percent, to 16,994.22, its best single-day performance since December.
Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index had their best days in almost a year. The S&P 500 surged 33.79 points, or 1.75 percent, to 1,968.89, while the tech-rich Nasdaq climbed 83.39 points, or 1.90 percent, to 4,468.59.
After a choppy morning session, major stock indices spiked up following the release of the minutes in the afternoon, which stressed that "the current forward guidance for the federal funds rate was data dependent and did not indicate that the first increase in the target range for the federal funds rate would occur mechanically after some fixed calendar interval following the completion of the current asset purchase program."
In some participants' view, it also revealed that "the costs of downside shocks to the economy would be larger than those of upside shocks."
At the same time, a couple of participants pointed out that the appreciation of the dollar might also tend to slow the gradual increase in inflation toward the Fed's 2 percent goal, which provided room for the Fed to hold the interest rate in an extremely low range for a long time.
Shortly after the closing bell, aluminum giant Alcoa unofficially kicked off a new corporate earnings season by reporting better-than-expected quarterly results. The largest U.S. aluminum producer earned 0.31 U.S. dollar per share in the third quarter, higher than market consensus of 0.23 dollar per share, on revenues of 6.24 billion dollars, also beating analysts' expectations of 5.85 billion dollars.
The CBOE Volatility Index, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, declined 12.15 percent to end at 15.11.
On Tuesday, all the three major indices tumbled more than 1.5 percent on global growth worries, after the International Monetary Fund lowered its global economic growth forecast for the third time this year.
In other markets, the dollar declined against most major currencies Wednesday after the Fed minutes showed officials were concerned that the global economic slowdown and a stronger dollar could pose risks to the outlook of the U.S. economy.
In late New York trading, the euro increased to 1.2731 dollars from 1.2658 dollars in the previous session. The greenback bought 108.16 Japanese yen, higher than 108.15 yen of the previous session.
Crude prices dropped as U.S. crude supplies of last week increased more than expected.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell 1.54 dollars to settle at 87.31 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for November delivery lost 73 cents to close at 91.38 dollars a barrel.
Gold futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange dipped on technical selling.
The most active gold contract for December delivery fell 6.4 dollars, or 0.53 percent, to settle at 1,206 dollars per ounce in floor trading.
|
