U.S. stocks rose in an uneventful pre-Thanksgiving trading session on Tuesday, after starting the week on a pessimistic pace.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) climbed 1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^ DJI) jumped 300 points, or about 0.9%. The technology-intensive Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) added 0.8%.
Cleveland Federal Reserve Chair Loretta Mester said Tuesday that restoring price stability remains a top priority for herself and other members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which sets monetary policy.
“We are committed to using our tools to put inflation on a sustainable downward path to 2%,” she said at an event hosted by her bank.
Mester’s counterpart in St. Louis, Fed Chairman James Bullard, is scheduled to speak later Tuesday.
The remarks follow comments from the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Mary Daly on Monday, who said officials could lift US central bank policy rate above 5% if inflation does not subside. Daly also noted that the reversal of a 75 basis point hike in December is “premature” and that “nothing is on the table.”
In commodity markets, oil pared Monday’s losses after plunging to January lows on fears that further lockdowns in China and a signaled output boost from Saudi Arabia and OPEC could weigh on Requirement. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has since refuted the prospect of an increase in production, helping oil recover from the decline. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose to around $81 a barrel after hitting $75 a barrel on Monday.
On the corporate side, shares of Zoom Video Communications (ZM) fell almost 8% after the video conferencing platform has revised downwards its outlook for annual revenue and projected other challenges posed by declining demand for online meetings.
A sharp rise in COVID cases across China has sparked a wave of new restrictions for the world’s biggest economy just weeks after investors cheered an end to aggressive lockdowns in the country.
“The specter of COVID still hangs over the Chinese economy, threatening to cause further disruption to supply chains and demand for goods,” Susannah Streeter, senior investment and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said on Tuesday.
The S&P 500 started the shortened Thanksgiving week lower than in previous years. According to data from Bespoke Investment Group, Monday of Thanksgiving week has historically seen the index trading slightly lower, with a decline of 0.01%. In years where the index has declined by 10% or more since the start of the year, such as in 2022, performance has been more positive, with an average gain of 0.37%.
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Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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