Investing.com - Stock market bulls got what they wanted from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who hinted that the central bank could cut interest rates to support the economy.
Speaking in Chicago on Tuesday, Powell said the Fed would respond "as appropriate" to the risks posed by a global trade war and other recent developments, dropping his standard reference to the central bank being "patient" in its approach to any rate decision.
He added that the Fed would do what it must to “sustain the expansion.”
The comments further fueled expectations that the U.S. central bank is moving closer to cutting interest rates, boosting investor sentiment and sparking a surge in equities on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite enjoyed their biggest one-day gains in five months on Tuesday, with all three indices ending up more than 2%. Wall Street notched further gains on Wednesday, with the Dow and S&P each rising 0.8%.
The rally looked set to continue into Thursday. At around 6:20AM ET (11:20 GMT), the blue-chip Dow futures were up 78 points, or around 0.3%. Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also ticked higher.
The market is betting the Fed will cut rates in July, with odds currently standing at around 73%, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool. Overall, futures have priced in around three rate cuts by December.
Thursday also marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy invasion, which was the largest seaborne invasion in history and laid the foundations for the Allied defeat of Germany in World War II.
The event took place on June 6, 1944, and saw of tens of thousands of troops from the U.S., the UK, France and Canada landing on five stretches of the Normandy coastline -- codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword.
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-- Reuters contributed to this report