The Federal Reserve chair gave a green light to a year end relief rally in beaten down assets, whether or not investors read Wednesday's keynote speech by the Federal Reserve Chair.
The optimism continued through Thursday with China now expected to announce an easing of its COVID 19 quarantine protocols and a reduction in mass testing.
On the face of it, the Fed chief Jerome Powell merely confirmed what most had already assumed - that the Fed would downshift the size of its interest rate to half a point next month.
Powell made a statement that policymakers did not want to tighten policy, even if his reasoning was to keep rates higher for longer at a sustainable level.
The upshot is that markets have dragged their implied peak Fed rate back below 5 per cent next year and continue to price up to half a point of cuts by the end of 2023.
The S&P 500 surged more than 3 per cent -- its second biggest one-day gain in more than two years - and futures held the bulk of the gains on Thursday as bourses around the world rose in the slipstream. The dollar has fallen to its lowest since August, with 10 year U.S. Treasury yields hitting their lowest in almost two months.
The policy tilt, assuming it was meant to be one, came after a mixed bag of U.S. economic soundings - still tight labor markets as seen through job openings data and upward GDP revision, but softening private payroll creation and Chicago business sentiment.
The Core PCE inflation numbers are due later and there is a barrage of Fed speakers to hold Powell's take up to the light.
The overall market reaction to both Powell this week and China's developments over the past month probably reveal more about market positioning and the seasonal urge to front load bets on a less brutal 2023.
The Swiss bank's wealth management business has reached its highest level since 2008, according to Colm Kelleher, chairman of the UBS.
Elon Musk said he hopes a wireless brain chip developed by his company, Neuralink will begin human clinical trials in six months, after the company missed earlier timelines set by him.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the now-bankrupt FTX, tried to distance himself from suggestions of fraud in his first public appearance since his company's collapse stunned the criptocurrency world.
Key developments that could provide direction to the U.S. markets later on Thursday:
U.S. Federal Reserve Board Governor Michelle Bowman, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, Dallas Fed chief Lorie Logan all speak.