00:00Wall Street ended sharply higher on Monday, March 16th, fueled by gains in AI-related stocks,
00:05with meta-platforms climbing after a report that it is preparing for sweeping layoffs,
00:10while oil prices retreated amid ongoing uncertainty about the Middle East conflict.
00:15A modest drop in crude prices after the U.S. said it will be fine with some Iranian,
00:20Indian and Chinese ships. Moving through the Strait of Hormuz also offered some relief to the market.
00:27Higher energy prices are likely to feature prominently in central down-linkings globally this week.
00:55We're getting the drip of information that they want a de-escalation, that we're moving towards reopening the Strait of
01:02Hormuz.
01:03Whether that's true or not, you know, the market really wants that news and I think is rallying on some
01:08optimism today,
01:10whether that's, you know, particularly founded or not.
01:13The thing that would really shift is that they feel enough pressure to start thinking about a hike.
01:22You know, I don't think they would lay that out in the language, but, you know, it could be inferred
01:25and it might be a question at the press conference of what it would take to shift back into hiking
01:29mode.
01:30That would be a meaningful shift for the market, especially given some of the concerns in the credit space right
01:37now.
01:39If the direction changes, you know, but we don't expect much from this meeting because the data is stale
01:45and because the market is already pricing, you know, 100-ish percent chance odds that they hold.
01:52The Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday.
01:59Traders have pushed back their expectations for an interest rate cut of at least 25 basis points beyond October,
02:05according to LSEG compiled data, compared with their previous expectation of a cut in July.
02:11The S&P 500 gained 67.19 points or 1.01 percent to end at 6,699.38 points,
02:20while the Nasdaq Composite gained 268.82 points or 1.22 percent to 22,374.18.
02:29The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 387.94 points or 0.83 percent to 46,946.41.
02:39Wall Street's fear gaged the CBOE volatility index drop, while the rate-sensitive Russell 2000 index gained.
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