This Week on Wall Street

Stocks rallied Thursday as a pullback in oil prices and easing Treasury yields helped investors look past this week's hawkish Federal Reserve rate hike; the S&P 500 climbed 0.59% to 7,596.14, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.69% to 26,418.30 on strength in Nvidia, CoreWeave, and Amazon, and the Dow rose 0.61% to 51,778.04 even as Lockheed Martin and McDonald's lagged. The rebound trimmed but didn't erase this week's damage from Wednesday's 25 basis-point hike to 3.75%-4.00% — the first since 2023 — under Chair Kevin Warsh: the S&P 500 and Dow remain down roughly 0.8% and 1.5% week-to-date, while a tech-led surge pushed the Nasdaq into slightly positive territory for the week. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.96% and WTI crude slid back near $100 as Middle East tensions cooled, lifting rate-sensitive Technology and Communication Services to the top of the sector leaderboard while Energy gave back its early-week gains. The VIX tumbled to 15.44 and the CNN Fear & Greed Index ticked up to 30 (Fear) as anxiety over the Fed's hawkish dot plot — which signals one more hike in 2026 — began to ease. Attention now turns to this morning's Fed speakers and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index, plus next week's earnings from FedEx, Micron, and General Mills, for confirmation the economy can withstand higher rates.