U.S. Stocks Extending Gains, Look Set To End Session On Firm Note

The major averages all remain firmly up in positive territory on Wall Street with just about an hour to go for the closing bell on Wednesday as investors continue to pick up stocks, digesting the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meeting, and looking ahead to consumer price and producer price inflation data, due later in the week.

The Dow is up 369.04 points or 0.88 percent at 42,449.41. The S&P 500, which moved to a new record high, is at 5,782.47, up 31.34 points or 0.54 percent, while the Nasdaq is up 85.33 points or 0.47 percent at 18,268.25.

The minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September meeting showed official agreed to cut interest rates but were unsure how aggressive to get, and ultimately decided on a half percentage point move, aiming to balance confidence on inflation with worries over the labor market.

The minutes said that policymakers decided to approve a jumbo rate cut of 50 basis points for the first time in more than four years, and also showed members divided over the economic outlook.

Some officials hoped for a smaller, quarter percentage point reduction as they sought assurance that inflation was moving sustainably lower and were less worried about the jobs picture.

The minutes noted that the vote to approve the 50 basis point cut came “in light of the progress on inflation and the balance of risks” against the labor market. The minutes noted that “a substantial majority of participants” favored the larger move, without specifying how many were opposed. The term “participants” suggests involvement of the full FOMC rather than just the 12 voters.

The minutes also noted that some members favored a reduction at the July meeting that never materialized.

Nike, Caterpillar, IBM, Honeywell, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft and Apple Inc. are gaining 1 to 2 percent.

Palo Alto Networks, ASML, Airbnb, Costco Wholesale and Cadence Design Systems are gaining 2 to 3.4 percent.

Alphabet shares are down more than 2 percent, after the U.S. Department of Justice said it may ask a judge to force Google to divest parts of its business, including the Chrome browser and Android operating system, to curtail its search monopoly.

Boeing is down by about 2 percent. Salesforce is declining 1.4 percent. Illumina, Micron Technology and AMD are down 1.1 percent, 1 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively. Tesla is moderately lower.

Data from the Commerce Department said U.S. trade deficit shrank to $70.4 billion in August from a revised $78.9 billion in July. Economists had expected the trade deficit to decrease to $70.6 billion from the $78.8 billion originally reported for the previous month.

The narrower trade deficit came as the value of imports shot up by 2.0 percent to $271.8 billion, while the value of imports decreased by 0.9 percent to $342.2 billion.