US stock market: Wall Street advances as bond yields fall, investors digest Fed minutes
Wall Street's major indexes closed higher after Wednesday's choppy session with the release of minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's last meeting showing caution among policy makers that helped fuel investor hopes that rates would stay steady.
Fed officials pointed to uncertainties around the economy, oil prices and financial markets as supporting «the case for proceeding carefully in determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate,» according to the minutes released on Wednesday from the Sept.
19-20 meeting.
Trading was choppy on Wednesday with all the indexes starting off the session with gains before turning lower ahead of the minutes and then regaining lost ground to push higher.
Along with recent moves in interest rates and dovish comments from Fed officials in the last few days, Angelo Kourkafas, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones, said the minutes appeared encouraging for investors.
«Today's release highlights the risk of over-tightening, and knowing what has happened over the past three weeks with interest rates, that provides some comfort to investors that we're not going to see another rate hike,» said Kourkafas.
But he noted that upcoming Fed decisions will take into account consumer price index (CPI) readings for September, due out on Thursday before market open, as the Fed's «data dependence hasn't gone away.»
Earlier on Wednesday, data showed that U.S. producer prices increased more than expected in September amid higher costs for energy products, but underlying inflation pressures at the factory gate continued to moderate.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 65.57 points, or 0.19%, to 33,804.87, the S&P 500 gained 18.71 points, or 0.43%, to 4,376.95 and the
