Wall Street climbs as markets assess Fed statement

US Stock indices rose on Thursday following important data, while investors assess the Federal Reserve’s policy decisions and statement this week. 

Earlier government data showed unemployment claims stayed flat at 208 thousand last week, while analysts expected a rise to 212 thousand. 

The Fed 

The Federal Reserve announced its decision to maintain interest rates unchanged between 5.25% and 5.5% for the sixth straight meeting.

The Fed’s policy statement indicates it doesn’t expect to perform any rate cuts until there’s enough confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in his press conference on Wednesday that the Fed expects policies to remain restrictive for sometime in order for inflation to hit the 2% target. 

He added that he doesn’t expect the next policy step to be a rate hike, however he doesn’t expect a rate cut until inflation is reliably heading towards 2%. 

On trading, Dow Jones rose 0.5%, or 190 points as of 16:53 GMT to 38,091, while S&P 500 rose 0.5%, or 23 points to 5,041, as NASDAQ added 0.8%, or 135 points to 15,740.