Welcome to Mint live blog. Track this space for latest news and updates on stock markets. Key Wall Street stocks surged on Wednesday due to hopes of an effective covid-19 treatment, helping investors shrug off bleak GDP data and words of warning from the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Big tech companies provided the biggest lift to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, and pushed all three major US stock averages closer to their all-time highs reached in February.
The US Fed left key interest rates near zero at the conclusion of its two-day monetary policy meeting, with Powell warning that the country's economy will drop at an "unprecedented rate" in the current quarter.