Under no pressure to throw investors a bone, Jerome Powell nevertheless did, igniting the biggest stock market rally on the day of a Federal Reserve meeting in a decade.
All it took was a few phrases in a day otherwise rife with hawkish pronouncements from a central bank bent on subduing the hottest inflation in 40 years. While stocks initially wobbled on confirmation the Fed had pushed up interest rates by 50 basis points, the S&P 500 took off when Powell said an even bigger increase is “not something that the committee is actively considering” for coming meetings.
