S&P 500 and S&P gain as Fed hikes pace

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S&P 500 and S&P gain as Fed hikes pace

After upbeat quarterly results, bank shares gained on Tuesday, as bank shares gained on the rise of aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve and sportswear maker Nike.

Nine of the 11 major S&P sectors were up in early trading with financials and consumer discretion rising the most.

The S&P 500 banks increased by 3.4%, due to a 5.2% rise in Wells Fargo. The 10-year Treasury yield US 10 YT RR rose to 2.36%, its highest level since mid-May 2019.

The probability of a 50 basis point rate hike at the Fed's policy meeting in May increased to 72.2% after Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday that the central bank must move quickly to combat inflation. Peter Cardillo, Chief Market Economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York, said the market is accepting that because the Fed is taking a serious stand to fight inflation.

The market is reacting from an oversold market condition and we're going to see the market continue to do well in the near-term in anticipation of first-quarter earnings. Nike NKE.N shares moved 5.5% to beat the blue-chip Dow as it beat quarterly profit and revenue expectations, and said manufacturing issues that have been behind it for the past six months. Megacap Apple Inc AAPL.O, Microsoft Corp MSFT.O, Amazon.com AMZN.O and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O gained between 0.5% and 1.1% to give the biggest boost to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.

The Kremlin said it would like ongoing talks between Moscow and Kyiv to be more active and substantive as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces continued.

On Monday, Wall Street's main indexes snapped four sessions of gains because of rising uncertainty around the conflict and hawkish comments from Powell.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI was up 283.64 points, or 0.82%, at 34,836, according to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. 63, the S&P 500 SPX was up 27.96 points, or 0.63%, at 4,489. The Nasdaq Composite IXIC was up 96.85 points, or 0.70%, at 13,935. Tesla Inc TSLA.O added 0.6% as the electric-car maker geared up to deliver the first 30 Model Y cars at its 5 billion euro $5.5 billion European plant. After the Chinese e-commerce giant increased its share buyback program to a record $25 billion, Alibaba Group Holding BABA.N jumped 10.5%. Advancers outnumbered decliners by a 2.47 to 1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3.18 to 1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 35 new 52 week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 35 new highs and 22 new lows.