Wall Street closes at record highs on the back of strong earnings
Fueled by the robust earnings reports, major equity indexes in the U.S. continued to push higher on Wednesday and closed the day at fresh record highs. In the meantime, the Federal Reserve decided to keep its monetary policy unchanged after its 2-day meeting and didn't provide any fresh insights on the economic outlook or the start of the balance sheet normalization.
"Following the statement, traders' bets that the Fed would raise rates at its December meeting stood at only 35 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data," Reuters said in a recent report. Financials, which usually gather strength on heightened expectations of interest rate hikes, remained in the red.
Coca Cola, AT&T, and Boeing were three of the biggest corporations that announced better-than-expected EPS and revenue results today. AT&T shares gained nearly 5% and allowed the telecommunications sector .SPLRCL to be the best performing sector of the day. Furthermore, energy sector received a boost from the rising crude oil prices after the EIA had announced another huge draw in crude inventories in the U.S. The barrel of West Texas Intermediate settled at $48.75, up $0.86.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 97.58 points, or 0.45%, to 21,711.01, the S&P 500 added 0.7 points, or 0.03%, to 2,477.83 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 10.57 points, or 0.16% percent, to 6,422.75.
After the closing bell, Facebook announced second quarter EPS at $1.32 (estimate $1.13) and revenue at $9.32B (estimate $9.20B).
Headlines from the U.S. session:
- Gold intermarket: $1,265 (18th May high) is back on the map post less hawkish Fed
- CME Group FedWatch tool sees virtually no chance of September hike
- FOMC Sticks to Script: balance sheet unwind to begin "relatively soon" USD retreats - BBH
- US Dollar approaches 13-month lows after FOMC disappoints
- Fed leaves policy unchanged, Sep balance sheet announcement likely - ING
- Comparison between July and June FOMC statements
- Fed leaves interest rates unchanged at July meeting
- Moody's: Administration sheds little light on US federal infrastructure plan - Reuters
- Dollar View: Discipline or Stubbornness - BBH
- EIA: U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 7.2 mln barrels