How major US stock indexes fared Wednesday, 3/20/2024

Stocks rallied to more records after the Federal Reserve indicated it’s still likely to deliver the cuts to interest rates this year that Wall Street craves. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.3%. All three indexes hit all-time highs. The fear coming into the day was that the Fed would trim the number of expected rate cuts this year because of some hot inflation data, but it’s still penciling in three. Traders built bets that the first cut will come in June.