What a difference a day makes. One day after a market-wide sell-off sent stocks tumbling over global economic concerns, U.S. markets rebounded dramatically after the release of a report suggesting the Federal Reserve will not hasten an interest rate hike.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Wednesday up 275 points, or almost 2%, erasing all the losses seen in the prior session. The spike came a day after the Dow Jones plunged more than 270 points in its worst day since July 31. Wednesday’s jump put the blue-chip index on pace to close trading on the positive side for just the second time in eight days — a stretch that has seen the Dow Jones fall by 1% overall.
Earlier Wednesday the Dow had fallen as much as 56 points. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also experienced rebounds Wednesday after they each fell by at least 1.5% on Tuesday.
The boost came after the Fed’s highly-anticipated release of minutes from its September policy meeting. The report showed that a number of Fed officials at that meeting forecasted slower growth for the U.S. economy due to economic concerns overseas and a strengthened U.S. dollar. By taking a more dovish stance on the economy, the Fed offered hope to investors who had been worried that a planned interest rate hike would happen sooner than expected in 2015.
Investors’ concerns over the pending rate hike have made for a volatile past month for U.S. markets, which also got spooked on Tuesday after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its eurozone outlook for the rest of this year and 2015. However, Fortune’s Geoffrey Smith wrote today that the eurozone economy is not in quite as bad shape as some investors seem to think.
