Wall Street set to rise as Fed wages war on inflation By Reuters

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) -Wall Street’s main indexes were set to climb on Thursday after the Federal Reserve announced a faster wind-down of its pandemic-era stimulus, calming some nerves around surging price pressures.

The U.S. central bank said on Wednesday it would end its bond purchases in March and signaled three quarter-percentage-point interest rate hikes by the end of 2022.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy no longer needed increasing amounts of policy support as annual inflation has been running at more than double the central bank’s target in recent months, while the economy nears full employment.

“Is the ‘Santa rally’ finally here? Markets certainly seem to have a spring in their step … the prospect of three interest rate hikes in 2022 would suggest the central bank has a clear plan to not let inflation get out of control,” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, wrote in a client note.

“Equally, it isn’t being too aggressive to trip up the economy. This sense of balance is exactly what investors want, and an upbeat tone from the Fed certainly seems to have rubbed off on markets.”

Recent readings on surging producer and consumer prices as well as the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus have fueled anxiety, but with most of the biggest market-moving events for the year now over, the benchmark inched closer to a record high.

“I would say that a sprint to the finish likely is what this market should expect,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York.

“There’s a real good chance that a lot of the things that have caused turbulence in both November and much of December are now in the rear view mirror, and markets might now be able to glide higher.”

Big technology stocks and banks were leading the gains in premarket trading. Shares in Tesla (NASDAQ:) Inc, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:), Apple Inc (NASDAQ:), Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) rose between 0.2% and 1.5%.

Bank stocks including JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:), Bank of America (NYSE:), Wells Fargo (NYSE:) and Citigroup (NYSE:) gained between 1.4% and 1.7%.

At 8:33 a.m. ET, were up 224 points, or 0.62%, were up 30.25 points, or 0.64%, and were up 85.25 points, or 0.52%.

Data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased moderately last week, remaining at levels consistent with tightening labor market conditions.

Lennar Corp (NYSE:) fell 4.9% after the homebuilder missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit as pandemic-led supply chain issues pushed lumber costs higher and delayed house deliveries.

Data firm IHS Markit is scheduled to release manufacturing, services, and composite PMI surveys for December later in the day.