Last week, stock prices rose on global markets, particularly on Wall Street, as the slowing inflation in the U.S. supported investors’ hopes that the Federal Reserve would slow the pace of interest rate hikes.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones rose 4.15% last week to 33,747 points, while the S&P 500 jumped 5.9% to 3,992 points, and the Nasdaq index increased by 8.1% to 11,323 points.
The strong jump in the indices is primarily attributed to the fact that inflation in the U.S. fell from 8.2% in September to 7.7% in October, the lowest level since January and below expectations. This has fueled hopes that the interest rate hikes are yielding results and that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of raising key interest rates in the upcoming period.
– This is a very significant data point. In recent months, there has been speculation that inflation had peaked, and the market was frustrated because the data did not show this. For the first time, this is now evident in the data – said King Lip, a strategist at Baker Avenue Asset Management.
After the Fed raised key interest rates by an aggressive 0.75 percentage points for the fourth consecutive meeting at the beginning of November, analysts expect a slowdown in the pace.
Before the inflation report was released, there was an estimated 52% chance that the Fed would raise rates by a milder 0.50 percentage points in December, and now those odds have exceeded 80%. As a result, yields on U.S. bonds have significantly fallen, and the dollar’s exchange rate against major currencies has also declined. All of this has supported the stock market.
