Wall Street's main indexes swung between gains and losses on Thursday after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the central bank does not see strong evidence of wage inflation. In his second congressional testimony, Powell also said there is no evidence the US economy is currently overheating, weakening the case for faster interest rates.
In contrast, New York Fed President William Dudley said he was gaining confidence that the US rate hikes will be needed and that four rate hikes would be gradual. Rising inflation and bond yields were the main concerns as Wall Street ended a turbulent February on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 posting its first monthly loss in 11 months.
"This month will be positive for equity markets because the inflation gauges that we've seen are significantly more modest than investors are expecting," said Peter Kenny, senior market strategist at Global Markets Advisory Group, in New York. At 11:52 am ET, the Dow was up 0.13 percent at 25,060.97, the S&P 500 0.17 percent at 2,718.53 and the Nasdaq Composite 0.16 percent at 7,284.88.
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