NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks edged higher early Friday as markets digested gains from a post-election surge extended by a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.
The S&P 500 is up more than four percent so far for the week after President Donald Trump swept the US elections, cheering investors hoping for tax cuts and growth policies and shrugging off worries about tariffs.
That was followed by the Fed’s interest rate cut on Thursday, with policymakers keeping the door open to additional interest rate cuts down the road.
About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2 percent at 43,835.56.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.2 percent to 5,985.10, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added less than 0.1 percent at 19,275.76.
A Wall Street Journal report Friday described the greater eagerness of Wall Street figures to join Trump’s administration compared with 2016 which is “in part a reaction to relief from the past four years of regulatory scrutiny, threats to break up companies and the promise of lower, rather than higher, corporate tax rates,” said FHN Financial’s Chris Low.
Elsewhere, China unveiled a package to refashion local debt. However, the package fell short of hopes for measures to stimulate consumption, analysts said.