Mount Fuji and the Shinjuku skyline in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Japan’s Nikkei 225<\/a> rose over 1% to hit a fresh record high amid mixed trading in the region on Wednesday as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, widely believed to bring a second straight 25 basis point cut.<\/p>\n Markets are assigning a nearly 100%<\/a> probability that another quarter-point reduction, on the heels of September’s cut, would bring the federal funds rate to a range between 3.75%-4.00%.<\/p>\n “If [Fed chair Jerome Powell] comes off dovish, bets for future Fed cuts will increase and provide more fuel to market momentum,” veteran investor Louis Navellier wrote in a daily note.<\/p>\n The federal funds rate<\/a>, set by the Federal Open Market Committee, is the interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. While it doesn’t directly affect consumers, the Fed’s moves often influence borrowing costs for mortgages, credit cards and other loans.<\/p>\n The Topix was flat. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.17%, while the small-cap Kosdaq lost 0.25%.<\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> lost 0.16%. Australia’s consumer prices rose 3.2% in the third quarter, the strongest gain in more than a year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics<\/a> said Wednesday. The increase exceeded the 2.1% rise seen in the second quarter and was above the 3% forecast by economists polled by Reuters.<\/p>\n Hong Kong markets are closed for the holidays.<\/p>\n Overnight in the U.S., all three major averages closed higher. The\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0rose 0.23% to close at 6,890.89. It had\u00a0surpassed the 6,900 level for the first time<\/a>\u00a0on an intraday basis earlier in the day.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Nasdaq Composite<\/a>\u00a0advanced 0.80% to finish at 23,827.49, while the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0gained 161.78 points, or 0.34%, to settle at 47,706.37. In addition to their closing highs, the tech-heavy Nasdaq and 30-stock Dow scored new all-time intraday highs alongside the broad market S&P 500.<\/p>\n \u2014CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mount Fuji and the Shinjuku skyline in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota\/Bloomberg via…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3739,2339,138,553,6056,65,219,1759,5548,220,76606,111,139,3746,5742,69,9596,11081,1430],"class_list":["post-106147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-asia-economy","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-chicago","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-japan","tag-jerome-powell","tag-markets","tag-naruhito","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nikkei-225-index","tag-nvidia-corp","tag-nz","tag-osaka","tag-tokyo","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}