S&P 500 up on dovish Fed minutes, Disney stock surges

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY traded higher in a holiday-shortened week on Wall Street as investors cheered a more dovish tone from the Federal Reserve.

The Fed's language suggests that the Fed will likely dial back the pace of its interest rate hikes to 0.5% in December, and the Federal Open Market Committee released its November meeting minutes on Wednesday. The Fed said that slower interest rate hikes will be appropriate soon and could reduce the risk of instability in the financial system. Walt Disney Co DISDisney Co DIS will replace CEO Bob Chapek with former CEO Bob Iger on Sunday, news that Disney shares went up by 6% on Monday. In early 2020, Chapek replaced Iger as CEO, but has faced criticism over Disney's rising costs and poor share price performance.

The bankruptcy of the FTX exchange could cause contagion in the crypto market, and the price of the digital currency fell to new two-year lows under $15,500 on Tuesday. Kathy Hochul signed a new law on Tuesday that bans carbon-basedBitcoin mining in the state for at least two years.

Retailers kicked off the holiday shopping season with Black Friday sales on Friday. According to Adobe, online shoppers will spend $34.8 billion during the five day stretch from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, up 2.8% from a year ago.

DICK'S Sporting Goods Inc DKS shares jumped more than 10% on Wednesday after the retailer reported third-quarter earnings, revenue and same-store sales that exceeded analyst expectations.

In the week ahead, the third quarter earnings season continues with reports from Pinduoduo Inc -- ADR PDD on Monday, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co HPE on Tuesday and Xpeng Inc -- ADR XPEV and Salesforce Inc CRM on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 companies have had their lowest earnings growth in two years, according to FactSet.

Economic Numbers: After the encouraging Fed minutes, investors will get more key economic updates on Wednesday when Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivers a speech at the Brookings Institution and Friday when the U.S. Labor Department releases its November jobs report.