Investing.com - The S&P hit a record high on Thursday as investors bet on the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this year.
The S&P 500 hit its highest intraday level ever, above 2,956 in early trading. It was up 0.8% to 2.953.40 as of 9:45 AM ET (13:45 GMT).
The Dow rose 0.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite gained 1%.
Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they would be willing to cut rates in order to combat slowing global growth and cooling inflation.
Fed central bankers slashed their rate outlook for the rest of the year, according to the Fed’s dot plot projections, while Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference that many agree the case for lowering rates is increasing.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) was among the top gainers, rising 0.9% after it began talks with other airlines for sales of its 737 Max jets after receiving a letter of intent for purchase of 200 of the grounded planes from British Airways owner IAG (LON:ICAG).
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) surged 6.6% after it beat quarterly earnings forecasts, while Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was up 0.7% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) gained 0.7%. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose 1.2% and Micron (NASDAQ:MU) was up 2%.
Elsewhere, Kroger (NYSE:KR) fell 3.3%, even as its sales for the first quarter were in line with estimates, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slumped 2.6%.
In commodities, crude oil jumped 4.3% to $56.30 a barrel, gold futures gained 2.8% to $1,387.15 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.4% to 96.183.