Wall Street climbs as Fed sees progress against inflation

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street climbed Wednesday to its best level since the summer following the latest hike to interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which said it’s finally seeing improvements in inflation.

The S&P 500 rallied back from an early 1% loss to rise 1% after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the economy is on the path toward getting inflation lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average erased a drop of 500 points to rise 6, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 2%.

As expected, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to its highest level since late 2007. It’s the smallest such increase in the Fed’s blizzard of rate hikes since March.

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