Shares on Wall Street gained after Fed Chair Jerome Powell pledged to be judicious in removing stimulus. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 596.40 pts, or 1.79%, to close at 33,891.35. The S&P 500 index rose 1.86%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.62%. The small cap Russell 2000 gained 2.51%.
Ford Motor (F US, +8.38%) said that it will separate its electric-vehicle operations from its combustion-engine business.
Shares of US-listed Macau casino operators, including Las Vegas Sands (LVS US, +10.17%), Melco Resorts and Entertainment (MCLO US, +9.16%), rallied on Wed after DJ reported that China is “actively exploring” ways to exit its zero tolerance approach to Covid.
Treasury yields rose with equities. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note notched up 14.92 basis points (bps) to 1.8767%.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Apr) contracts settled down $21.50, or 1.1%, at US$1,922.30/oz. Bitcoin (XBTUSD) rose 0.43% to US$44,090.71.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, was little changed at 97.385.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed up $7.96 at US$112.93/bbl and $7.19 at US$110.60/bbl respectively.
European equity markets finished higher on Wed. The UK FTSE gained 1.36%, France's CAC 40 rose 1.59%, while the German DAX advanced 0.69%.
The Dow Jones Russia GDR Index US$ (DJRUSGD index, -66.71%), which tracks London-traded Russian companies, has plunged 98% in two weeks. London shares of Gazprom (OGZD LI, -23.8%) traded as low as US 3 cents apiece, before “recovering” to 58 cents per share.