Market Volatility Subsides Following Sharp Rise On Wall Street

U.S. stocks ended sharply higher on Wednesday following the interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve announced a 0.75 percentage point interest increase on Wednesday in order to combat surging inflation. The central bank is increasing rates to cool the sharpest rise in inflation level since the 1980s.

The market was also driven by a sharp rise in shares of Microsoft Corp MSFT and Alphabet Inc GOOGL.

All the sectors on the S&P 500 settled higher, with communication services stocks recording the biggest surge on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones jumped 436 points to 32,197.59 on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq 100 jumped 4.06% to 12,032.42 in the previous session.

The US dollar also lost ground on Wednesday as investors bet the central bank would slow rate increases after hiking interest rates on Wednesday.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) dropped 5.5% to 23.33 points on Thursday.

Investors are now awaiting the release of several economic reports, including Gross Domestic Product, initial jobless claims and Kansas City Fed manufacturing index, due to be released today. Apple Inc. AAPL and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN will also release earnings reports after the closing bell today.