STORY: U.S. stocks ended higher on Wednesday, with the Dow adding 1%, the S&P 500 gaining about a third of a percent, and the Nasdaq ticking up marginally.
It was the second straight day of record closing highs for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.
It's an upward momentum that has baffled some investors, says Alexander Morris, CEO and chief investment officer at F/m Investments.
“There's a lot of things to be worried about, but it seems pure demand and greed keeps driving equity markets higher and higher. // Investors are no doubt watching inflation that is, although a little cooler than expected, it's still stubbornly above the Fed's metric, impugning of the independence of the Federal Reserve from the executive branch that seems to have been joined by the legislative branch, now, a plethora of names being mentioned for Jerome Powell's new job and the opening seat on the Federal Reserve Board, all of which are leading to politically driven policy as opposed to sound monetary policy.”
Stocks on Wednesday were buoyed by increasing confidence that the Federal Reserve was getting closer to cutting interest rates.
Traders are now fully pricing in a 25 basis-point cut at the Fed's September policy meeting, according to the CME's FedWatch Tool.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday that he thought an aggressive half-point cut was possible, given recent weak employment numbers.
Stocks on the move Wednesday included Apple, which rose more than one-and-a-half percent after Bloomberg News reported the company is plotting expansion into AI-powered robots, home security and smart displays.
AI data center operator CoreWeave, which is backed by Nvidia, fell almost 21% after the company reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly net loss.
And shares of Paramount Skydance jumped more than 36% as the company won exclusive broadcasting rights to the Ultimate Fighting Championship for seven years.
