About this episode
The US stock rally lost some steam Wednesday with the S&P 500 Index ending the day flat after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers that officials are struggling to determine the toll of tariffs on inflation. The benchmark closed the session unchanged in New York after swinging between small gains and losses, while the technology heavy Nasdaq 100 Index edged up 0.2% to log another all-time closing high. The tech benchmark reached the milestone Tuesday for the first time since February as a combination of robust fundamentals and easing geopolitical tensions boosted the appeal of the growth-focused gauge. In individual stock moves, Nvidia shares closed at an all-time high, with the leader in artificial intelligence chips extending an advance that has cemented its position as one of the most valuable companies in the world. We get reaction to the day's price action from Katy Kaminski, Chief Research Strategist at AlphaSimplex. Plus - Hong Kong's de facto central bank bought the local dollar to prop it up on Thursday, in a move to defend the city's currency peg to the greenback. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority purchased HK$9.42 billion ($1.2 billion) of local currency against the US dollar, after the exchange rate touched the weak end of the permitted 7.75-7.85 per greenback trading band. In addition to pushing the currency back into its permitted trading range, the move will also make bearish bets more costly. It does this by draining liquidity from the financial system and driving up borrowing costs. We get reaction from Garfield Reynolds, Bloomberg's MLIV Asia Team Lead. He speaks with Bloomberg's Haidi Stroud-Watts and Avril Hong. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.