2024-01-31 14:45:47
The Dow Jones index rose nearly 100 points as investors expected the Federal Reserve (Fed) to hold interest rates steady at tonight’s monetary policy meeting, in line with market expectations.
As of 9:36 p.m. Thai time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 38,562.27 points, plus 94.96 points or 0.25%.
However, Nasdaq futures fell nearly 1%, pressured by falling stock prices of Alphabet and Microsoft after the earnings release yesterday.
Markets pay close attention to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s statement after tonight’s meeting. To find signs indicating the direction of the Fed’s interest rates this year.
Investors put almost 100% of their weight on expectations that the Fed will maintain interest rates at this meeting.
CME Group’s latest FedWatch Tool indicates that investors are 97.9% positive that the Fed will maintain interest rates at 5.25-5.50% at today’s meeting. and gave a weight of 54.4% that the Fed will maintain interest rates at that level at its March meeting.
In addition, investors gave 51.7% weight to the Fed to cut interest rates by 0.25% to 5.00-5.25% at its May meeting. This will be the first interest rate cut. After the Fed raised interest rates 11 times since the start of the rate hike cycle in March 2022, As a result, the Fed raised interest rates by 5.25%.
Meanwhile, the market is keeping an eye on US employment figures this week.
The U.S. Department of Labor will release January nonfarm payroll figures on Friday.
Analysts predict that Employment numbers increased by 173,000 in January. This slowed from the level of 216,000 jobs in December. And the unemployment rate is expected to increase to 3.8% in January from 3.7% in December.
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