The New York stock market closed mixed on Wednesday.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell concluded the two-day FOMC meeting by maintaining the benchmark interest rate at 4.25-4.50%. He reaffirmed the Fed’s cautious stance on rate cuts, which dampened investor sentiment in the final hours of trading.
As the markets will be closed on Thursday for Juneteenth, investors adopted a wait-and-see approach.
Among the M7 Big Tech stocks, Tesla, Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft saw gains.
Mixed Market Close
The major indices finished near their previous closing levels.
Stocks started the day higher and maintained gains even after the FOMC announcement. However, the tide turned when Powell’s press conference began.
Initial gains of around 0.5% across the board narrowed to about 0.3% during Powell’s remarks, before shifting to mixed territory.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 44.14 points (0.10%) to 42,171.66, while the S&P 500 dropped 1.85 points (0.03%) to 5,980.87.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq bucked the trend, rising 25.18 points (0.13%) to close at 19,546.27.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), Wall Street’s fear gauge, fell nearly 7% but remained above the key 20-point level. The VIX dropped 1.46 points (6.76%) to 20.14.
M7 Mixed
The M7 Big Tech stocks showed varied performance.
Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms all declined.
However, the top four stocks popular among South Korean retail investors all advanced.
Tesla jumped 5.70 USD (1.80%) to 322.05 USD, while Nvidia gained 1.36 USD (0.94%) to 145.48 USD.
Apple rose 0.94 USD (0.48%) to 196.58 USD, and Microsoft added 2.20 USD (0.46%) to close at 480.24 USD.
Palantir Technologies, a software firm favored by South Korean investors, climbed 1.76 USD (1.27%) to 139.96 USD.
Stablecoin Stocks Surge
Circle and Coinbase, issuers of the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin, saw significant gains.
The surge followed the U.S. Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Act on Tuesday night, a bill that aims to bring stablecoins into the regulatory framework.
Investors flocked to Circle and Coinbase, anticipating a new era for stablecoins as the Senate bill moves toward reconciliation with the House’s STABLE Act.
Circle soared 50.44 USD (33.82%) to 199.59 USD, while Coinbase surged 41.44 USD (16.32%) to 295.29 USD.
Circle, which went public on June 4 with an IPO price of 31.00 USD, had skyrocketed 168% on June 5.
This day’s closing price of 199.59 USD represents a 544% increase from its IPO price, or about 6.5 times higher.
