The S&P 500 opened higher by 18.92 points, or 0.52pc, at 3,666.41, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 103.22 points, or 0.83pc, to 12,543.26 at the opening bell.
China's blue-chips, however, ended 0.2pc higher, helped by upbeat factory data which expanded for an eighth month in a row as an economic recovery gathered pace.
Across what is one of the country’s most technocratic and PhD-heavy institutions, months of singular focus on the path of the pandemic and its impact on the U.S. economy has yielded this: Who the heck knows?
Private employers added 365,000 jobs in October, according to data from payroll services firm ADP released Wednesday, a significant undershoot in hiring.
The new policy, laid out in a strategic document last month and incorporated into a policy statement issued on Wednesday.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said, for example, that he'd be paying closer attention to how fast inflation rises rather than on its quarter-to-quarter level in implementing the new approach.
The US central bank earlier this week signaled it would keep interest rates in their current range of 0% to 0.25%.
I would have preferred the Committee make a stronger commitment to not raising rates until we were certain to have achieved our dual mandate objectives.
In a landmark shift to a more tolerant stance on inflation, the Fed’s new monetary policy strategy pledged to address maximum employment by letting inflation run above its 2% target and suggested interest rates would stay near zero for years to come.
Labor Department data released earlier in the day showed the world's largest economy added 1.4 million new jobs in August and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4 percent.
The Fed noted "rising instances of furloughed workers being laid off permanently as demand remained soft," especially in the hard-hit services industries.
Businesses began to reopen, and retail sales improved across the country, but there were some new layoffs and employment, too, is far below where it was before COVID-19 struck, the report said.
Beginning next Tuesday, the minimum rate on the Fed's overnight repo operations will be set at 0.05 percentage point above the interest rate on excess reserves.
Starting June 22, the New York Fed will shift to offering overnight repo operations in the
Governors will be able to designate two issuers in their jurisdictions whose revenues are generally derived from operating so-called government activities.
Currently only US states and cities with a population of at least 250,000 residents or counties