(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window)
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Fed minutes due at 2 p.m. ET
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Job openings fall less than expected
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Microsoft falls on UBS rating downgrade
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Indexes up: Dow 0.73%, S&P 1.17%, Nasdaq 1.13%
(Adds comments, details; updates prices throughout)
By Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas
Jan 4 (Reuters) – Wall Street's main indexes reversed early losses on Wednesday, as investors looked past a set of economic data, with focus squarely on the Federal Reserve's December meeting minutes for clues on the outlook for interest rates.
Minutes from the Fed's previous meeting, when it raised interest rates by half a percentage point and cautioned rates may need to remain higher for longer, are due at 2 p.m. ET (1900 GMT).
The minutes could show the central bank's internal deliberations entering a new phase where risks to economic growth and employment are given more standing, while curbing high inflation remains the top priority.
"What you'll hear is the Fed needs to continue to hold the line and fight inflation … there'll be some back and forth between various members about where the terminal rate should land," said Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Wealth & Investment Management.
U.S. job openings in November indicated a tight labor market, giving the Fed cover to stick to its monetary tightening campaign for longer, while other data showed manufacturing contracted further in December.
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari on Wednesday stressed the need for continued rate hikes, setting out his own forecast that the policy rate should initially pause at 5.4%.
U.S. equities were pummeled in 2022 on worries of a recession due to aggressive monetary policy tightening, with the three main stock indexes logging their steepest annual losses since 2008.
Market participants see a 66.7% chance of a 25-basis point rate hike from the Fed in February, and see rates peaking at 4.98% by June.
Apple Inc and Tesla Inc bounced back from a searing drop in the previous session and rose 2.3% and 5.0%, respectively.
"People repositioning their portfolios for this year is leading the market to see these gains … people are stepping into names that really underperformed last year," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth Management.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp dropped 4.3% following a downgrade by brokerage UBS on worries over slowing growth for its cloud services and Office suite.
Consumer discretionary and financial stocks led the gains among the major S&P 500 sector indexes.
At 11:52 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 241.58 points, or 0.73%, at 33,377.95, the S&P 500 was up 44.63 points, or 1.17%, at 3,868.77, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 117.59 points, or 1.13%, at 10,504.58.
Salesforce Inc gained 3.4% on the enterprise software firm's workforce reduction plans.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 6.25-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3.55-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded two new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 58 new highs and 39 new lows. (Reporting by Shubham Batra, Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
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U.S. equity futures moved lower Thursday, while the dollar bumped higher against its global peers, as investors sifted through details of the Federal Reserve's inflation debate and focused on stronger-than-expected jobs data that has rekindled inflation concerns. Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, when officials agreed their seventh rate hike of the year, indicated concern that financial markets, as well as the public, would question the central bank's resolve to fight inflation if it were to signal softer-near term rate hikes. As it stands, the Fed is prepared to endure "below trend growth" in order to ease inflationary pressures, adding policymakers would need to see it "substantially more evidence of progress to be confident that inflation was on a sustained downward path."
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