NEW YORK: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose to fresh multi-month highs on Wednesday as investors bet the Federal Reserve would skip raising interest rates later in the day, while a decline in shares of insurer UnitedHealth dragged down the Dow.
A bigger-than-expected drop in US producer prices in May due to a decline in the costs of energy goods and food signaled that inflation was cooling, supported by data a day earlier that showed consumer prices moderated last month.
The US central bank is expected to keep interest rates steady at the 5%-5.25% range, unchanged for the first time since it kicked off a historically aggressive round of policy tightening in March 2022 aimed at curbing soaring inflation.
“Whether or not this is the end of rate hikes for this cycle, we don’t know yet nor does the Fed,” said Brad Bernstein, managing director at UBS Wealth Management.
“I think we’ll get what’s called a hawkish pause today, where they’ll be talking about their concerns about inflation but at the same time not raise rates.”
Traders see a 98% chance of the Fed holding rates at the current levels, but they have priced in nearly 60% odds of a 25-basis-point hike in July, according to the CME Fedwatch tool.
The yield on two-year Treasury notes, which tend to move in step with short-term rate expectations, slipped to 4.62% after the release of producer prices data.
The Fed is scheduled to issue its policy statement and deliver new quarterly economic projections at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), followed by Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference.
At 11:50 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 80.62 points, or 0.24%, at 34,131.50, the S&P 500 was up 16.91 points, or 0.39%, at 4,385.92, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 60.87 points, or 0.45%, at 13,634.19.
Weighing on the Dow, UnitedHealth Group tumbled 7.2% after the health insurer warned of a spike in medical costs in the second quarter as more older adults undergo non-urgent procedures they had delayed during the pandemic.
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