Investing.com–The U.S. central bank on Wednesday posted its biggest gain since February when the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, although it said a possible cut in September was on the table.
At 4:00 PM ET (20:00 GMT), the price gained 1.5% and climbed 2.6%, up 99 points or 0.2%.
The Fed nods to inflation progress after holding rates steady
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but acknowledged recent progress on inflation and the cooling labor market, fueling investor hopes that the central bank could start cutting interest rates sooner rather than later. interest.
“We think this is the time [for a rate cut] is approaching… if we get the data we’re hoping to get, then a cut in our policy rate could be on the table in September,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday during the news conference following the policy decision.
Futures are almost completely pricing in a quarter-point easing in September, with a slim chance of a 50 basis point cut, and have priced in a 66 basis point easing by Christmas.
AMD leads chip, tech stocks rise, offsetting Microsoft’s stumble
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:) posted a 5% gain after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected second-quarter results, buoyed by record data center revenue, as customers including Meta and Microsoft continued to ramp up orders.
“The tone in data center GPU has been very solid, especially around customer breadth, as we think both OCI and META are now growing strongly alongside MSFT – with shipments starting soon to TSLA and very strong momentum across enterprises UBS said in a note.
In addition to the AMD results, sentiment on chips was boosted by the surge in ASML Holding NV (AS:) ADR (NASDAQ:) after Reuters reported that the Dutch chip equipment maker and other allies in Japan and South Korea could likely become excluded from the US chip ban. chip making equipment to China.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:) rose almost 13% and Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:) rose 8%.
Shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ:) pared some losses, falling 1% after fourth-quarter cloud revenue growth missed expectations.
While the company’s overall profit was just above estimates for the June quarter, revenue from Azure, the company’s cloud business, grew 29%, missing estimates of 30.2% and also slowing versus from the 31% increase in the previous quarter. This came even after investments in AI saw capital expenditure increase by $5 billion in the quarter.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:) becomes the latest of the mega-cap tech giants to release quarterly results this week after the close.
Meta, which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, among others, is expected to report a 20% increase in quarterly revenue.
Starbucks’ profits meet expectations, T-Mobile and Match Group surprise in terms of profit figures
Shares of Starbucks (NASDAQ:) rose nearly 3% after the coffee chain met quarterly profit expectations even as global sales fell due to continued weakness in consumer spending in its key markets, the US and China.
Shares of T-Mobile US (NASDAQ:) rose 4% after the telecom giant raised its full-year forecast for monthly phone subscriber payments as more customers opted for its discounted unlimited plans with streaming benefits.
Shares of Pinterest (NYSE:) fell more than 14% after the social media service offered a softer-than-expected third-quarter outlook despite reaching a record 522 million global monthly active users, up 12% from of the previous year.
Shares of Match Group (NASDAQ:) rose 13% after the online dating service posted a revenue decline in the second quarter and announced plans to lay off about 6% of its staff to cut costs.
(Peter Nurse, Ambar Warrick contributed to this article.)
