Strong Corporate Balance Sheets on Wall Street – Significant Price Gains in Tech Stocks

Frankfurt/New York Strong corporate balance sheets from corporations like Microsoft or Google’s parent Alphabet are attracting investors back to Wall Street. Another sentiment lifter on Wednesday was the prospect of a slower pace of interest rate hikes by the Fed. The Dow Jones gained 1.4 percent to 32,198 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 4.1 percent to 12,032 points and the broad-based S&P 500 gained 2.6 percent to 4,024 points.

The Fed raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points for the second time in a row. “Anything else would have been bad news,” said Jack Ablin, chief investor and co-founder of wealth manager Cresset. “Too low a rate hike would have undermined the credibility of the Fed and too high would have undermined confidence in the economy.” Another positive is that the decision was unanimous.