S&P 500 Rallies On Fed’s Decision To Speed Up Tapering, European Markets Mostly Up

London, Wednesday, 15 December 2021

US stocks steeply up as investors reacted to the Federal Reserve’s decision to speed up the pace of tapering. The Fed’s asset purchasing programme will decrease to $30 billion per month from $120 billion previously, in combined Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities from the start of the pandemic through November.

Meanwhile, European markets were mostly up with the exception of UK and Spain. In the UK, annual inflation increased 5.1% in November, while month-on-month consumer prices increased 0.7% and average petrol prices at record highs.

U.S. Stock Market Indexes

• S&P 500: +75.77 (+1.64%) to 4,709.86

• Nasdaq: +327.94 (+2.15%) to 15,565.58

• Dow Jones: +383.38 (+1.08%) to 35,927.56

European Stock Market Indexes

• STOXX Europe 600: +1.2, or 0.26%, to 470.76 points

• FTSE 100 in London: -47 points, or 0.66%, to end at 7,170

• DAX 30 in Germany: +22 points, or 0.15%, to close at 15,476

• CAC 40 in France: the best performer of the day,+32 points, or 0.47%, to 6,927

• FTSE MIB 30 in Italy:+109 points, or 0.41%, to end the day at 26,666

• IBEX 35 in Spain: +103 points, or 1.24%, to finish at 8,275

Other markets

• Ten-year U.S. Treasury notes: +2.5 bps to yield 1.4630%

• Dollar index: -0.23 or -0.24% at $96.34 as of Dec 15, 2021 at 4:38 p.m. EST

• VIX volatility index: −2.60 (11.88%) at 19.29 as of Dec 15, 3:15 PM CST

Oil prices

• Brent crude: +0.76 (+1.03%) at $74.46

• West Texas Intermediate: +0.76 or 1.07% at $71.49 as of Dec 15, 2021 at 4:43 p.m. EST

Precious metals

• Gold: +4.86 or +0.27% at $1,777.31 an ounce

• Silver: +0.12 or +0.56% at $22.09 an ounce

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin: +835.10 (1.73%) at $49,190.80 as of Dec 15, 10:00 PM UTC

• Etherum: +201.79 (5.23%) at $4,062.37 as of Dec 15, 10:04 PM UTC

(Written and edited by: The Decision Maker)