Stocks On Wall Street Rally Ahead of Rate Decision

Barry Adams
27 Jul, 2022
New York City

Stocks surged on Wall Street after Alphabet and Microsoft exceeded lowered earnings expectations. 

The Federal Reserve is set to announce its rate decision at the end of a 2-day meeting at 2:00 p.m. ET. 

Investors are anticipating rate hike by at least 50 basis points. 

Many economists are also looking for the Fed to take an aggressive stand and lift the rates by 75 basis points and front-load future rake hikes. 

The Fed has been lagging inflation for at least two years and the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, has exceeded the Fed's target rate of 2% for 18 months in a row.  

The CPI index for May and June hovered near 8.6% rate. 

The S&P 500 index increased 1.1% to 3,966.15 and the Nasdaq Composite index gained 2.1% to 11,802.69.  

Futures of crude oil rose $2.32 to $97.31 a barrel and natural gas fell 29 cents to $8.70 a thermal unit but still hovered near the price last seen in 2008. 

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes declined to 2.76% ahead of the Fed's rate decision. 

Microsoft gained 4.6% to $263.50 after the company exceeded lowered earnings expectations.

Microsoft said quarterly net income growth slowed after cloud business growth slowed and video game business shrank. 

June quarter sales increased 12% to $51.9 billion and rose in constant currencies 16% from a year ago. 

Net income jumped 2% or 7% in constant currencies to $16.7 billion from a year ago. 

Diluted earnings per share rose 3% to $2.23 from $2.17 a year ago. 

For the full-year net revenues rose 18% to $198.3 billion, net income surged 19% to $72.7 billion and earnings per share rose 20% to $9.65. 

Alphabet Inc jumped 6.4% to $11.45 after the parent of Google reported a decline in earnings but were ahead of the expectations set by some investors. 

Alphabet reported its slowest quarterly revenues increase in two years as rising dollar and weakening economic backdrop impacted advertising environment. 

Alphabet Inc said second quarter revenues increased 13% or 16% in constant currencies to $69.7 billion. 

Net income fell to $16.0 billion from $18.5 billion and diluted earnings per share fell to $1.21 from $1.36 a year ago. 

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc soared 15.3% $1.517.98 after the operator of fast food restaurants was able to increase customer price faster than the increase in food prices and wage costs. 

PayPal Holdings Inc increased 11.5% to $85.70 after the activist investor Elliott Management acquired a stake in the payment processor. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. 

Shopify Inc increased 5.9% to $33.40 despite the e-commerce platform operator reported wider-than-expected loss and said losses in the current quarter are expected to rise. 

Boeing Co declined 1.01% to $154.05 after the aerospace and defense contractor reported lower-than-expected revenues and wider-than-expected quarterly loss. 

However, the company did not revise its production schedule for 737 MAX jets. 

 Hilton Hotels rose 4.5% to $125.80 after the hotel operator lifted its annual outlook citing a rebound in travel demand. The company also delivered better-than-expected quarterly results.