Wall Street today: Nasdaq rallies 2.8%, S&P 500 up 1.8%, Dow adds 1.3% as Trump drops plans to fire Fed Chair Powell

US stock indices jumped on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said he has no plans to remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and on hopes for a trade deal with China.

At 12:53 PM EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.27%, the S&P 500 surged 1.82%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.78%.

At 10:52 AMEDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.54%, the S&P 500 surged 3.04%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 4.04%.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 628.0 points, or 1.60%, to 39,815.01. The S&P 500 rose 108.2 points, or 2.05%, to 5,395.92​, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 579.9 points, or 3.56%, to 16,880.29.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell sharply after Trump’s comments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 4.27% from 4.41% late on Tuesday.

What Trump said

After days of criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Powell for not cutting interest rates, President Trump on Tuesday backed off from threats to fire Powell.

The US president also signalled progress with China on the tariffs deal.

“It won’t be that high (currently 145%), not going to be that high,” Trump said, but also warned that "if they don't make a deal, we'll set the deal".

Gainers and Losers

Tesla shares surged 4.7% after CEO Elon Musk said he’ll spend less time in Washington and more time running the electric vehicle company.

On Tuesday, the EV maker reported a fall in first quarter profits.

Among megacap stocks, Nvidia gained 5.1%. Apple and Meta Platforms rose 3.6% and 6.7%, respectively.

Boeing shares rose 5.3% after reporting a narrower quarterly loss.

Bullion

Gold prices on Wednesday retreated from its record high.

Spot gold slipped 2.2% at $3,305.79 an ounce by 09:23 AM ET (1323 GMT), after hitting a record high of $3,500.05 in the previous session. US gold futures dropped 2.9% to $3,320.40.

Silver rose 1% to $32.83 an ounce, platinum gained about 0.9% to $967.61 and palladium rose 0.6% to $941.04.

Crude oil

Oil prices edged lower on Wednesday after Kazakhstan said it will prioritize national interests over output limits agreed with the OPEC alliance.

Brent North Sea Crude fell 0.8% at $66.88 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate lost 0.8% at $63.16 per barrel.

Kazakhstan’s newly appointed energy minister said the country is unable to reduce production at its three largest projects because they are controlled by international oil majors, Reutersreported.