Stock market today: Wall Street climbs to clinch its first winning week in a month
Stocks rose to send Wall Street to its first winning week since July
NEW YORK — Stocks rose Friday to send Wall Street to its first winning week since July after the head of the Federal Reserve said it will “proceed carefully” as it decides what to do with interest rates.
The S&P 500 climbed 29.40, or 0.7%, to 4,405.71 after flipping between small gains and losses a few times through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 247.48 points, or 0.7%, to 34,348.90, and the Nasdaq composite gained 126.67, or 0.9%, to 13,590.65.
In a highly anticipated speech, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said again that it will make upcoming decisions on interest rates based on what incoming data reports say about inflation and the economy, and he made no promises about what's coming next.
Wall Street had the speech circled on calendars because it was hoping Powell would say the Fed was done with its hikes to interest rates, which grind down inflation at the cost of slowing the economy and hurting prices for investments.
Powell instead said the Fed may raise interest rates again, if needed. Even though inflation has come down from its peak last summer, Powell said it’s still too high.
But he also took care to say he’s aware of the risks of going too far on interest rates and doing “unnecessary harm to the economy." Altogether, the comments weren't very different from what Powell said before, analysts said.
But one word of Powell's stood out to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, particularly as it relates to Powell's speech last year at the same Fed event. That 2022 speech caused stocks to fall sharply.
“Carefully is the new forcefully,” Jacobsen said. “Last year, Powell said the Fed would respond forcefully, and
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