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Wall Street modestly higher in early trade, Nasdaq rises on Apple rally

Major equity indexes in the U.S. started the day with small gains on Wednesday ahead of the FOMC announcements later in the session. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.18% on the day while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were adding 0.08% and 0.63% respectively.

With the tech-giant Apple in its second-quarter (fiscal year) report announcing higher-than-expected projected quarterly sales, the company’s shares rose more than 6% and helped the S&P 500 Technology Index gain traction, which was last up 0.85% on the day. On the other hand, after the EIA said that crude oil inventories in the U.S. increased by 9.9 million barrels, the barrel of West Texas Intermediate dropped toward the $63 mark and weighed on the S&P 500 Energy Index.  

Later in the session, markets will be paying close attention to the FOMC’s policy statement and Chairman Powell’s remarks on the outlook.  

FOMC Preview: What 14 major banks are expecting from today’s meeting?

“Recent communications by FOMC members sounded cautiously optimistic, many of them shrugging off recession risks and showing growing confidence that the U.S. economy would stay on track going forward,” NBF analysts said.

“While this suggests rate cuts may be out of the equation at this point, we don’t see the Fed returning to its hiking bias anytime soon, especially as it tries to convince markets that its 2% inflation target is a symmetric one.”

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