Nicole Webb, Gary Kaltbaum and Phil Blancato react to the Federal Reserve raising the rating by 25 basis points to ‘make money’.
US equity futures traded between gains and losses the morning after the Federal Reserve announced its first interest rate hike since 2008 and China promised to support its real estate and internet businesses.
Major futures indices are down 0.5% when the opening bell rings.
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US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up $ 4.57 or 4.8% at $ 99.66 a barrel.
Brent crude was up about $ 4.85 or 4.9% at $ 102.87 a barrel.
The central bank raised its short-term lending rate by 0.25 percentage points. The move was widely expected, but investors assured that it would be smaller than the 0.5 percentage point increase recommended by some officials.
FED raises interest rates for the first time in 3 years
In Thursday’s economic calendar, the Department of Labor released new claims for unemployment benefits for the past week. There are expectations for 220,000, up from 227,000 in the previous week. Continuing claims monitoring the total number of unemployed workers collecting benefits are expected to drop to 1.485 million, well below pre-epidemic levels.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said the number of new homes under construction in February rose 3.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.69 million. It was 1.638 million in January. Permits for future construction are expected to fall 2.4% to 1.85 million in February from 1.895 million in the previous month.
In addition, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve will release an index of production activities for eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.
The Federal Reserve will release industrial production data for February.
In Europe, London’s FTSE fell 0.1%, Germany’s DAX 0.9% and France’s CAC 0.7%.
In Asia, The Nikkei 225 rose 3.5% in Tokyo. In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Sheng was up 7% and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 1.4%.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I: DJI | Dow Jones Average | 34063.1 | +518.76 | + 1.55% |
| SP500 | S&P 500 | 4357.86 | +95.41 | + 2.24% |
| I: COMP | Nasdaq Joint Code | 13436.55295 | +487.93 | + 3.77% |
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose to 4,357.86. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.4% to 34,063.10. The Nasdaq compound was up 3.8% at 13,436.55 for the biggest daily profit in 16 months.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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