MARKET SNAPSHOT
U.S. stocks ended higher along with Treasury yields as attention turned to the Federal Reserve's Wednesday policy announcement. The dollar strengthened, pushing gold prices lower. Oil settled higher as market participants weighed supply-side risks.
MARKET WRAPS
EQUITIES
The S&P 500 climbed to a new record ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision, with investors awaiting clues about how stickier-than-anticipated inflation might influence potential rate cuts this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.8%, the S&P 500 rose 0.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.4%.
The central bank is widely expected to hold interest rates steady when its two-day policy meeting concludes Wednesday. Investors will instead focus on its latest interest-rate and economic projections.
Earlier this month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers the central bank was "not far" from being able to cut interest rates.
"The question is does he do a detour from that statement," said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial. "The market's move higher on the days we do move higher is predicated on the idea that the Fed will cut rates."
Earlier in the day, Chinese shares closed lower amid subdued sentiment on persisting property concerns. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.7% lower, the Shenzhen Composite Index lost 0.4%, and the ChiNext Price Index dropped 1%. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 1.2%, weighed down by biotech and transport-related stocks.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average ended 0.7% higher, led by gains in real-estate stocks after the Bank of Japan ended negative interest rates.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.4% higher as stronger iron-ore prices helped lift shares of the country's largest miners. Bank stocks pared the overall gains after the Reserve Bank of Australia held interest rates and reiterated that inflation remains uncomfortably high.
New Zealand's NZX-50 closed 0.8% higher despite weakness in consumer-related stocks. Most larger-cap companies finished higher.
COMMODITIES
Oil futures marked back-to-back settlements at their highest in five months as traders weighed potential changes to global supply and demand.
West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery rose 0.9% to settle at $83.47 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. May Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 0.6% to $87.38 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.
"Oil prices were given a bullish impulse at the onset of the week following the attacks on Russian refineries, better-than-expected Chinese economic data, along with Iraq's pledge to lower oil exports," said Han Tan, chief market analyst at Exinity.
Front-month Comex March gold lost 0.2% to settle at $2156.30 and is down three of the past four sessions.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Housing starts rebound in February by largest amount in nine months
The numbers: Construction of new U.S. homes rebounded 10.7% in February to an annual pace of 1.52 million units, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That is the biggest gain in nine months. Despite the increase, starts are still below December's level.
Economists on Wall Street were expecting a 7.4% rise in housing starts in February to 1.43 million. All numbers are seasonally adjusted.
The number of housing starts in January was revised slightly higher, to a drop of 12.3% to 1.37 million, from an initial reading of a 14.8% drop to 1.33 million. It is still the biggest drop since May 2022.
Microsoft Hires DeepMind Co-founder to Lead Consumer AI Unit
Microsoft has hired Mustafa Suleyman, a well-known leader and entrepreneur in artificial intelligence, to lead the software giant's efforts on consumer AI products.
Suleyman helped lead Google's DeepMind, a pioneering artificial intelligence lab that the company acquired in 2014. He left Google and co-founded AI startup Inflection AI, a startup that was last valued at $4 billion and raised funding from investors including Microsoft and Nvidia. In a post on X, Suleyman said he was stepping down from his position at Inflection AI.
Suleyman will be reporting to Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella. He, along with his Inflection co-founder Karén Simonyan, will be leading a new organization Microsoft is forming called Microsoft AI, which will focus on advancing its Copilot integration of AI into its products as well as its other consumer products and research.
Nvidia Plans to Price Newest AI Chips to Appeal to Wide Group of Users
Nvidia's next generation of artificial-intelligence chips will be affordably priced to appeal to a wide group of customers, Chief Executive Jensen Huang said Tuesday as he gave a bullish view on AI's growth.
The new crop of chips, code-named Blackwell, are the successors to Nvidia's wildly successful so-called Hopper chips, led by the H100. Huge demand for those chips led to supply shortages that have persisted as AI demand continues to skyrocket.
Huang told analysts at an annual conference on Tuesday that there were about $1 trillion of installed data centers in the world. He later told reporters that spending was about $250 billion last year and growing about 20% a year.
Ben & Jerry's Owner Loses Its Taste for Ice Cream
After more than 100 years of selling ice cream, Ben & Jerry's owner Unilever has lost its taste for the business.
Unilever said Tuesday it plans to separate its ice-cream division-which also makes Magnum, Wall's, Breyers, Talenti, Popsicle and Klondike-into a stand-alone business. It said listing the business as a separate entity is the most likely outcome. A sale is also a possibility.
The company-whose stable of brands includes Dove soap, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Tre Semme shampoo-also said some 7,500 jobs would be affected as part of a restructuring program aimed at saving 800 million euros, about $870 million, over the next three years.
AstraZeneca Buys Fusion for Initial $2 Billion
AstraZeneca is buying Fusion Pharmaceuticals for up to $2.4 billion as part of a plan to accelerate the development of next-generation cancer treatments, and marking the latest in an acquisition spree by the company.
The deal follows a number of other recent billion-figure takeovers from AstraZeneca and comes at a time of intense merger-and-acquisition activity in the pharmaceutical industry, which has seen big companies snapping up smaller biotechnology businesses.
The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical heavyweight said Tuesday that it will pay an initial $21 a share for Fusion, with an extra $3 nontransferable contingent value right upon a specified regulatory milestone being reached.
Expected Major Events for Wednesday
00:00/AUS: Feb Vacancy Report
03:00/AUS: Mar Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment
06:30/INA: Mar Bank Indonesia Board of Governors meeting and decision
08:00/TAI: Feb Export Orders
09:59/CHN: Feb FDI Foreign Direct Investment
09:59/CHN: People's Bank of China loan prime rate (LPR) announcement
14:30/AUS: Jan Australia Conference Board Leading Index
21:45/NZ: 4Q GDP
22:00/AUS: Mar Australia Flash PMI
23:50/JPN: Feb Provisional Trade Statistics for the Month
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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 19, 2024 17:07 ET (21:07 GMT)
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