Dow, S&P 500 close at record highs after Federal Reserve’s supersized rate cut

By Krystal Hur, CNN

New York (CNN) — Stocks jumped Thursday as investors cheered the Federal Reserve’s eye-popping half-point interest rate cut.

The Dow closed 522 points, or 1.3%, higher, reaching a new record after passing the 42,000 level for the first time. The S&P 500 rose 1.7%, topping 5,700 for the first time and also closing at a fresh high. The Nasdaq Composite added 2.5%.

Tech stocks surged: Nvidia shares popped 4%, Tesla shares gained 7.4%, Meta Platforms shares rose 3.9% and Apple shares climbed 3.7%.

The gains carried over into Friday’s trading session in Asia. Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.5% higher and South Korea’s Kospi 0.5% up. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was trading 1.4% higher by late afternoon local time.

In Europe, stocks opened slightly lower Friday, after rising strongly the previous day. The region’s benchmark Stoxx 600 index ticked down 0.5% by 4.31 a.m. ET. Germany’s DAX index and France’s CAC 40 index were down 0.9% and 0.8% respectively, while London’s FTSE 100 dipped 0.6%.

On Wednesday, the Fed cut rates by half a point, marking its first rate cut since the onset of the Covid pandemic and bringing rates down from a 23-year high. The move was larger than the smaller, more conservative quarter-point cut that some investors expected from the central bank.

A large rate cut can be a double-edged sword for the economy. Lowering borrowing rates should take pressure off companies and everyday Americans, which should theoretically help slow down job losses. But that can also be inflationary, running the risk of undoing some of the Fed’s hard-fought battle against wayward price hikes.

The Fed’s latest decision reflects its shift from tamping down inflation to the other part of its dual mandate: maximizing employment. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday that he believes the job market and economy are both on solid footing. But he cautioned that the labor market is no longer as strong as it was before the Covid pandemic.

“The Fed took out an insurance policy against further labor market weakening,” wrote Ronald Temple, chief market strategist at Lazard, in a Wednesday note.

Stocks have whipsawed in recent months between steep drops and notching record highs, in part as investors worried that the Fed waited too long to cut rates and that the economy could enter a downturn. The Fed faced pressure to cut rates in July but held steady instead.

Powell warned that investors shouldn’t expect half a point to be the pace at which the Fed cuts rates going forward. Officials penciled in more rate cuts for 2024 in their latest economic forecasts released Wednesday, up from the single cut they previously forecast for this year. Central bankers expect unemployment to rise to 4.4% this year from August’s 4.2% rate.

As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might change slightly.

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CNN’s Bryan Mena, Juliana Liu and Anna Cooban contributed to this report.