US stock markets continued their upward journey during Monday’s trading, driven by optimism over the possibility that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will choose to pause raising interest rates at its meeting this week.
The broad S&P500 index rose 0.9 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.5 percent.
The rise was largely driven by technology companies. Electronics giant Intel rose 5.5 percent, competitor AMD climbed 3.4 percent and software giant Adobe lifted 4.5 percent. Index-heavy technology giant Apple rose 1.6 percent.
The TV channel CNBC notes that today’s gains mean that the S&P500 index is at the same level as at the end of April 2022.
Analysts expect Tuesday’s May inflation numbers to show a slowdown in the rate of inflation, increasing the chance of a Fed meeting without rate hikes. However, the Fed has raised the policy rate at the last ten meetings. In early May, it was raised by 0.25 percentage points to a range of 5.00-5.25.