Dow surges as fears of big rate hikes ease

Wall Street’s main indexes climbed on Tuesday after consumer prices in the world’s largest economy rose in line with expectations, bolstering bets of a smaller interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve at its next meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 460 points, or 1.5%, to 32,279, the Nasdaq climbed 2.2% and the S&P 500 was up 2%.

Data showed that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in February versus 0.5% a month ago. On a yearly basis, it rose 6.0% last month, compared with 6.4% in the previous month.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI increased 0.5% after rising 0.4% in January.

In the 12 months through February, the so-called core CPI gained 5.5% after advancing 5.6% in January.

Traders held on to bets of a 25-basis-point rate hike at the Fed’s next meeting in March, with odds of a pause in hikes slipping a bit to 17%. 

Stocks have been hammered in the past few days following the collapse of SVB Financial Group and peer Signature Bank and on fears of risks to other banks from sharp interest rate hikes by the Fed.

Investors are hoping that the threat of a financial crisis will force the central bank to ease up on monetary tightening.

“In light of the weekend’s events, I don’t think it could have been a more perfect number. It’s showing that inflation is trending the way that the Fed has kind of expected and wanted,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer, Bokeh Capital Partners, Pittsburgh.

“The Fed’s not going to be super aggressive and hurt banks more by raising interest rates.”

First Republic Bank jumped 52.7% before trading in its shares was halted for volatility. Shares of peer Western Alliance Bancorp were also halted.

Meta Platforms rose 5.8% after the Facebook-parent said it would cut 10,000 jobs in a second round of mass layoffs.

Other major Big Tech and growth stocks such as Apple, Alphabet and Tesla rose between 1% and 4% in early trade.

Shares of ride-hailing companies Uber Technologies and Lyft  rose 7% and 8.6% respectively, after a California state court revived a ballot measure allowing app-based services to treat drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

United Airlines Holdings fell 6.2% after the carrier on Monday forecast an unexpected loss in the current quarter.