Inflation And Earnings Focus On Wall Street As Megacaps Soar

(CTN News) – A few megacap stocks led Wall Street’s main indexes higher on Wednesday, but caution ahead of inflation reports and big bank earnings later in the week kept investor sentiment in check.

As yields on the benchmark 10-year note fell ahead of a highly Inflation anticipated government bond auction, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon.com rose between 0.4% and 1.4%.

The largest contract chipmaker in the world, TSMC (2330.TW), beat fourth-quarter revenue expectations by 2.1% as well as Nvidia (NVDA.O).

In the communications services sector (.SPLRCL), Meta Platforms (META.O) rose over two years to a two-year high, leading sectoral gains of 0.7%.

Following contrasting economic data and mixed signals from the Federal Reserve, equities have gained little since the turn of the year amid expectations of early rate cuts.

As the December consumer and producer inflation reports are due on Thursday and Friday, the central bank may be able to determine its monetary policy trajectory based on these results.

The New York Fed’s John Williams will also speak later in the day, which investors will closely monitor.

Inflation surprises could cause bond and equity prices to drop, according to Skyler Weinand of Regan Capital.

According to the CME FedWatch Tool, market participants now see a near 67% chance of a 25-basis-point rate cut in March, compared to around 86% last week.

It is expected that JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), Bank of America (BAC.N), Citigroup (C.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N) will report lower profits on Friday.

According to Weinand, unless yields drop tremendously during the next two years, banks Inflation will be in trouble for at least two years.

As a result, the S&P 500 bank index (.SPXBK) fell by between 0.8% and 1.0% on Wednesday.

By 11:36 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 32.42 points, or 0.09%, to 37,557.58, the S&P 500 gained 6.87 points, or 0.14%, to 4,763.37, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 39.59 points, or 0.27%, to 14,897.30.

The price of Bitcoin fell over 2.1% as Inflation Coinbase (COIN.O), Bitfarms, and Riot Platforms (RIOT.O) lost over 2.1% each after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed a fake social media post regarding the approval of exchange traded funds.

Following a 9.3% decline in the last two sessions, Boeing (BA.N) rose 1.3%. Despite more than 170 jets remaining grounded, Boeing’s CEO acknowledged errors.

The stock of DocGo (DCGO.O) fell 34.1% after Fuzzy Panda Research revealed short positions.

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