Tech Stocks Rise as Markets Await Fed's Forecasts

Stocks rose Monday ahead of a busy week for central banks around the world that could dictate where interest rates go next.

• The S&P 500 rose 32.33 points, or 0.6%, to 5,149.42 , coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since October. It pulled close to its all-time high set early last week.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.66 points, or 0.2%, to 38,790.43.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 130.27 points, or 0.8%, to 16,103.45 %.

The highlight for Wall Street this week will likely be the Federal Reserve's meeting on interest rates, which ends on Wednesday, the AP reports. The widespread expectation is for the central bank to hold its main interest rate steady at its highest level since 2001.

But Fed officials will also give updated forecasts for where they see interest rates heading this year and in the long run. They earlier had penciled in three cuts to rates this year, which would relieve pressure on the economy and financial system. Recent reports on inflation have consistently been coming in worse than expected, though. That could force the Fed to say it will deliver fewer rate cuts this year. Such a move would be a sore disappointment for Wall Street, where stock prices have already run up partly on expectations for lower rates. The Bank of England and the Bank of Japan will also announce interest rate decisions this week.

On Wall Street, Nvidia was 0.7% higher after paring an earlier, bigger gain as it kicked off its annual conference for developers. Analysts say the widespread expectation is for Nvidia to unveil its next generation artificial-intelligence architecture, along with the growing use cases for AI. Other Big Tech stocks also pushed the S&P 500 upward. Apple rose 0.6%, and Alphabet rallied 4.4%. Tesla jumped 6.3% to trim its loss for the year so far. On the losing end of Wall Street was Hertz Global Holdings, which skidded 6.2% to bring its loss for the year so far to 30.3%. Its chair and CEO, Stephen Scherr, will resign at the end of March.

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