LONDON: U.S. stocks closed near intraday highs Monday, buoyed by remarks from one Federal Reserve official suggesting a September interest-rate hike may not be a done deal, as well as from a bounce-back in Chinese equities.
Lately, main U.S. indexes have been weighed by worries about the prospect of a slowdown in Asia as well as impending tightening of U.S. monetary policy.
But comments from Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer on Monday may have helped ease some of those concerns. He told Bloomberg TV he doesn’t expect the first interest-rate hike by the U.S. central bank in more than nine years to occur until after inflation returns closer to the Fed’s target of around 2%. The inflation rate has dipped close to zero in recent months and hasn’t been above 2% since April 2012.
Stocks didn’t waver even after Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, who last week supported a September rate hike, said Monday the economy is strong enough to handle a gradual rise in interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.39% closed up 241.79 points, or 1.4%, at 17, 615.17, after being up nearly 256 points earlier. Twenty-nine out of 30 of the blue-chip index components closed higher, led by Caterpillar Inc. CAT, +3.71% up 3.7%, and Apple Inc. AAPL, +3.64% up 3.6%. Apple is expected to host a special event in the week of Sept. 7 to unveil its latest iPhone and Apple TV.
The Dow’s move higher snapped a seven-session losing streak, the index’s worst since 2011’s debt ceiling crisis.
