Bulls are stampeding across Wall Street on Thursday in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in over four years.
The central bank’s bold move, a 50-basis-point cut, caught analysts off guard and sent the U.S. stock market to fresh record highs at the opening of Thursday’s session.
The S&P 500 soared to a new all-time high, reaching 5,700 points. Similarly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to an unprecedented 42,000 points.
In the first 30 minutes of trading, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones rose by 1.4% and 1%, respectively. The Nasdaq 100 climbed 1.5%, although the Russell 2000, representing small-cap stocks, outperformed with a surge of over 2%.
The market rally was primarily driven by the Magnificent Seven: Microsoft Corp. (NYSE:MSFT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA). Each of the Magnificent Seven are recording daily gains ranging from 1.5% to 4.5%, solidly in positive territory.
Chart: S&P 500 Hits Record Highs
Image: Benzinga Pro
Strong Labor Market Eases Slowdown Fears, Analysts Boost Rate-Cut Wagers
Thursday’s economic data further boosted investor confidence. Weekly jobless claims came in well below expectations, suggesting a lower-than-expected trend of rising unemployment.
Continuing jobless claims also dropped more than expected, hinting at a potential absorption of long-term unemployed individuals into the job market.
This data alleviated concerns about rising unemployment and provided a more optimistic outlook for the economy.
Wall Street analysts quickly adjusted their expectations following the Federal Reserve’s rate cut. There is now growing anticipation of additional rate cuts, diverging from the cautious tone expressed in the Fed’s September “dot plot” and Chair Jerome Powell‘s remarks during the press conference.
Notably, Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius revised his forecast from expecting a 25-basis-point cut at every other meeting to predicting a rate cut at every meeting. He even left the door open for a back-to-back 50-basis-point reduction in November.
Thursday’s 5 Top-Performing S&P 500 Stocks
Among the S&P 500, the top five performers as of 10 a.m. ET were:
|
Name |
1-day Return |
|
Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NASDAQ:DRI) |
7.46 |
|
Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB) |
5.27 |
|
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CDNS) |
4.40 |
|
Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LCRX) |
4.34 |
|
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) |
4.33 |
Thursday’s 5 Top-Performing Dow Jones Industrial Average Stocks
Among the Dow Jone, the top five performers were:
|
Name |
1-day Return |
|
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) |
3.02 |
|
Salesforce, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRM) |
3.01 |
|
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) |
2.80 |
|
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) |
2.71 |
|
American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) |
2.67 |
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This article S&P 500, Dow Jones Hit Record Highs: Magnificent 7 Add $400 Billion After Fed’s Historic Interest Rate Cut originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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