NEW YORK — Stocks gained ground Wednesday to recover some of their losses from the day before, which was Wall Street’s worst in three weeks.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said again that cuts to interest rates may be coming this year, but that the Fed needs more data showing inflation is cooling before it will act.
The S&P 500 rose 26.11 points, or 0.5 percent, to 5,104.76. The benchmark index fell 1 percent a day prior.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.86 points, or 0.2 percent, to 38,661.05. The Nasdaq composite rose 91.95, or 0.6 percent, to 16,031.54.
Nvidia was the strongest force pushing upward on the S&P 500 as it rose 3.2 percent. Meta Platforms also steadied itself and rose 1.2 percent a day after sliding 1.6 percent. They’re among the market’s most influential stocks because of their massive size.
They and other Big Tech stocks have also been disproportionately responsible for the S&P 500’s run to records on expectations for strong continued growth. That’s raised the bar of expectations for them to justify their high stock prices, leading to some drops this week.
CrowdStrike jumped 10.8 percent after the cybersecurity company reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also gave a forecast for upcoming profit that topped Wall Street’s estimates.
Shares of the troubled New York Community Bancorp bounced around and eventually finished 7.5 percent higher after it announced a lifeline of more than $1 billion from a group of investors, including Steven Mnuchin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary under President Donald Trump. It nearly halved earlier in trading before being halted for news. The regional bank has lost 66 percent of its value this year amid falling values in commercial real estate and acquisitions.
An index of regional bank stocks pared most its losses following the announcement. The KBW Nasdaq Regional Banking index slipped 0.4 percent after being down as much as 3.1 percent earlier in the afternoon.
In the bond market, Treasury yields edged lower as Powell spoke about interest-rate policy before a House of Representatives committee.
Wall Street scrutinized his words for hints about when the Federal Reserve could begin cutting its main interest rate, which is at its highest level since 2001.
