Description

▸ Global stocks boos­ted by Fed chair Pow­ell’s remarks at cent­ral bank sum­mit

▸ US gov­ern­ment bonds rally as investors price in faster rate cuts

▸ European indices also buoyed late in trad­ing day by Jack­son Hole speech

Global stocks rose yes­ter­day after US Fed­eral Reserve chair Jay Pow­ell indic­ated that the case for an interest rate cut by the world's most import­ant cent­ral bank had strengthened.

At his speech in Jack­son Hole, Wyom­ing, at the annual meet­ing of cent­ral bank poli­cy­makers, Pow­ell said that “shift­ing” eco­nomic risks have sharpened the case for a rate cut and warned about a cool­ing labour mar­ket.

Investors cheered the speech, send­ing stocks and bonds higher. By mid­day in New York, the blue-chip S&P 500 was 1.5 per cent higher and the tech-heavy Nas­daq Com­pos­ite had risen 1.7 per cent.

Cyc­lical stocks, which tend to climb along­side hopes for a stronger eco­nomy, led the stock mar­ket gains. A bas­ket of con­sumer dis­cre­tion­ary stocks rose 2.7 per cent.