US equity indexes rose on Wednesday after the Treasury said it would at least double the size of buybacks of long-dated government debt, driving long-term Treasury yields sharply lower from multi-year highs.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.5% to 26,438.7, and the S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 7,735. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.3% to 53,536.9. Health and materials sectors led the gainers, while the industrials and utilities sectors led the decliners.
The yield on 30-year Treasuries fell 7.9 basis points to 5.21%, while the 10-year yield fell 4.6 basis points to 4.66%.
Gold futures gained 3.1% to $4,556.60 per ounce, and silver futures rose 3.2% to $66.06.
In economic news, US crude oil stocks, including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, fell by 900,000 barrels in the week ended Aug. 14, following an increase of 11.3 million barrels in the week earlier.
Excluding SPR inventories, commercial crude oil stocks rose by 4.4 million barrels compared with a 17.4-million-barrel gain in the week prior, and above the 200,000-barrel increase expected in a survey compiled by Bloomberg.
The US West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract rose 2.1% to $86.74 per barrel.
US Mortgage applications fell by 0.4% in the week ended Aug. 14, with an increase in refinancing activity offset by a decline in home purchase applications, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data released Wednesday.
In company news, Moderna (MRNA) shares climbed 128%, and Merck (MRK) shares gained nearly 11% after the companies said a trial of intismeran autogene in combination with Keytruda met the primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival in patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma.
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