US close: Wall Street gains after Fed decision

Traders pushed the main Wall Street equity benchmarks higher after the US central bank’s decision to keep policy unchanged, although no less than three voters on the Federal Open Market Committee dissented, casting their ballots in favour of an immediate rate hike.

Worth noting too, in her press conference Fed chair Janet Yellen noted that the FOMC's decision did not reflect a lack of confidence in the economy.

With the Fed safely out of the way – at least for the moment - the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.90% or 163.74 to 18,293.70 points, the S&P 500 gained 1.09% or 23.36 points to 2,163.12 points and the Nasdaq advanced 1.03% or 53.83 points to end at 5,295.18 points.

Oil prices were also on the up after data showed a surprise drop in US crude inventories.

The Energy Information Agency said US commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 6.2m barrels last week to 504.6m barrels.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures jumped 3.4% to $45.57 per barrel and Brent advanced 2.51% to $47.06 per barrel.

According to the Summary of Economic Projections, the presidents of the Fed's regional banks and the members of the central bank's board lowered their median forecast for the Fed funds rate at the end of 2017 from 1.6% to 1.1% and for 2018 from 2.6% to 1.9%.

Commenting on the Fed's announcements, Barclays Research's Michael Gapen and Rob Martin said: "[...] This split in views will make FOMC communication and action increasingly difficult this year.

"In particular, we believe that this level of dissent will make it difficult for the committee to keep the possibility of December rate hike live in the minds of market participants and, indeed, households and businesses."

Earlier in the same session, the Bank of Japan announced a shift in its policy regime towards targeting the shape of the country's government bond yield curve instead of the so-called monetary base.

"BoJ decision to shift its monetary policy regime was in part an admission that base monetary expansion itself did little to ease monetary conditions and that Japan needed a steeper yield curve in order to support the economy, said Tomoya Masanao, head of portfolio management Japan at PIMCO.

From a sector standpoint, the best performance was seen in the following industrial groups: Mining (7.06%), Industrial metals (3.89%) an Iron & Steel (3.70%).

At the individual company level, CarMax shares dropped after the used car retailer reported second quarter sales that missed forecasts.

General Mills reversed early losses to trade higher even after the food company posted a drop in profit and revenue in the latest quarter as sales of yoghurt continued to struggle.

Shares in Microsoft Corp gained after management announced after the close of markets in the previous session that it will bump its quarterly dividend and that it has approved share buyback programme.

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $130.56 2.17%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $83.47 2.17%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $99.63 1.98%
Unitedhealth Group Inc. (UNH) $139.92 1.77%
United Technologies Corp. (UTX) $101.96 1.72%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $57.75 1.65%
Pfizer Inc. (PFE) $34.28 1.39%
Merck & Co. Inc. (MRK) $62.70 1.23%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $51.87 1.17%
3M Co. (MMM) $179.59 1.12%

Dow Jones - Fallers

Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) $87.80 -0.88%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $92.39 -0.60%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $113.55 -0.02%
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) $72.19 0.31%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $167.03 0.34%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $116.93 0.41%
Coca-Cola Co. (KO) $42.53 0.45%
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD) $67.00 0.45%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $66.84 0.57%
General Electric Co. (GE) $29.85 0.61%

S&P 500 - Risers

United States Steel Corp. (X) $17.92 7.57%
Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) $41.03 7.55%
Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) $107.78 7.12%
FedEx Corp. (FDX) $173.86 6.89%
Freeport-McMoRan Inc (FCX) $10.54 5.93%
Apache Corp. (APA) $60.89 5.91%
Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) $14.65 5.62%
National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV) $33.69 5.58%
Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) $23.64 5.26%
Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR) $26.41 4.84%

S&P 500 - Fallers

Navient Corporation (NAVI) $13.28 -3.70%
Netflix Inc. (NFLX) $94.88 -3.43%
Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC) $21.37 -2.95%
Carmax Inc. (KMX) $54.61 -2.04%
Frontier Communications Co. (FTR) $4.13 -1.90%
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) $45.83 -1.57%
American Airlines Group (AAL) $34.67 -1.37%
CF Industries Holdings Inc. (CF) $23.03 -1.16%
Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALXN) $130.36 -1.04%
Endo International Plc (ENDP) $20.09 -0.99%