- The Nasdaq rallied 2.15% to close Wednesday?s session at 15,566 points.
- Roblox tanked 9% after releasing November user engagement metrics.
- Eli Lilly shares jumped 10% on guidance upgrade & drug trial updates.
The US markets reversed two straight sessions of losses to close sharply higher on Wednesday after Federal Reserve officials signalled they are prepared to raise short-term interest rates at least three times in 2022 to address the high inflation rate, which added certainty for investors.
The Federal Reserve will also cut back its extraordinary policies adopted during the pandemic, including the reduction of asset purchases by US$30bn per month and a likely end of the asset purchasing program by late March 2022.
The Dow Jones rose 1.08% to finish the trading day up 383 points to close at 35,927 points.
The tech heavy NASDAQ rose 2.2% to finish the trading day up 328 points to close at 15,566 points with Apple and Amazon gaining 2.85% and 2.5% respectively.
One bitcoin is worth US$48,843 going into the Asian trading day.
The Australian dollar is stronger against the major currencies and is buying 71.73 US cents.
Video game developer Roblox tanked 9% on Wednesday after the company reported November engagement metrics. For the month, Roblox announced growth in daily active users of 35% to 49.4m and time spent on the platform growth of 32% to 3.6bn hours, slowed during November compared to October. Investors sold out of Roblox shares in fear of decreasing user monetisation for the company.
Shares in US-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly jumped 10.4% after the company raised its full-year guidance to expect revenue between US$28bn and US$28.3bn on an adjusted EPS of US$8.15-US$8.20/share. The drugmaker also announced it has initiated a submission for pirtobrutinib, its investigational drug used in treating mantle cell lymphoma, to the FDA along with the initiation of new phase 3 clinical studies for evaluating tirzedatide in obesity, sleep apnea and kidney diseases.
And Stanford University?s new FarmHand robot has been designed to undertake repetitive tasks like fruit picking on farms to help solve labour issues around the world.