Investing.com – Wall Street opened higher as investors looked ahead to comments from members of the Federal Reserve and shake off interest rate fears.
The S&P 500 was up 19 points or 0.70% to 2,766.53 as of 9:40 AM ET (14:40 GMT) while the Dow composite increased 222 points or 0.88% to 25,532.43, and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite rose over 57 points or 0.78% to 7,394.98.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to speak before before congressional committees on Tuesday and Thursday. Investors will pay close attention to comments on his views on the recent uptick in inflation and how that can affect the current rate-hiking path.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said that the rate of increased interest rates should remain low and was concerned that the Fed could hike rates too high. He was speaking at the at the National Association of Business Economics in Washington, D.C. Fed Vice Chairman Randall Quarles is set to speak at the same venue at 3:15 PM ET (20:15 GMT).
Investors have also shaken off fears of inflation, as the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.848%. The benchmark note was pulling back from a four year high of 2.957% last week.
Technology stocks were among the biggest gainers after the morning bell. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 0.84% while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) increased 0.77% and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was up 0.69%. Telecommunications firm Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) rose 2.12% while Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRKa) surged 1.61% after Warren Buffett said the new GOP tax law will benefit the conglomerate by $29 billion.
Elsewhere General Electric (NYSE:GE) fell 1.35% while Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) was down 0.26% and Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) decreased 0.66%.
In Europe stocks were up. In Germany the DAX rose 66 points or 0.53% while France’s CAC 40 increased 40 points or 0.76% and in London the FTSE 100 gained 61 points or 0.84%. Meanwhile Spain’s IBEX 35 was up 44 points or 0.45% and the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 inched up 29 points or 0.87%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.32% to $1,334.60 a troy ounce while crude oil futures fell 0.44% to $63.27 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.06% to 89.86.