By Liz Moyer
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks rallied as big banks kicked off another busy week of earnings and expectations about a big interest rate increase by the Fed eased.
At 10:30 AM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 266 points, or 0.8%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.9% and the NASDAQ Composite rose 1.4%.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) beat expectations, its stock rising more than 4% after bond trading helped overcome weakness in M&A advisory. Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) rose 1.2% after its report also showed a slump in investment banking activity.
Investors are betting that the Federal Reserve won’t be as aggressive as some were betting last week after the consumer price index for June showed a jump of 9.1% for the 12 months ending last month.
High inflation stoked fears the Fed could jack up rates an uncharacteristically aggressive 1%, but now investors are expecting a 0.75 percentage point increase to match the move in June. That would still be one of the biggest moves since the 1990s.
Officials are trying to tame inflation, helped in recent weeks by a drop in gasoline prices, but still not enough for comfort. Food prices remain elevated as well, and a prolonged heat wave in much of the country means air conditioning bills will eat into household budgets this month.
This week will also see earnings from Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX).
Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures jumped 4%, to $98.44 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude also rose 4%, to $105.23.Gold Futuresrose 0.6%, to $1,713 an ounce.