Buy signals flashed across Wall Street Wednesday as traders grew optimistic rate cuts coming soon after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell left the door open to lowering borrowing costs at the central bank’s next meeting in September.

The S&P 500 Index soared as much as 2.1% to touch a session high, powered by gains in rate-sensitive technology stocks like Nvidia Corp., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. If those gains hold into the close, it will mark the index’s best Fed day session since July 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Nasdaq 100 rallied 3.2%, putting it on pace for its best session since February 2023. Both indexes pared some of their gains after Powell stopped speaking.

“Investors are taking comfort in Powell’s repeated assertion that there’s room to respond by cutting rates if there’s further weakness in the labor market,” said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. “A September rate cut looks like a lock unless something unexpected happens. The feeling now is the Fed has the market’s back over the next year, with rates in a downward trajectory—which is a boon for stocks.”

Fed swaps are now fully pricing in a quarter-point rate reduction in September after Powell said a reduction in borrowing costs cuts could happen as soon as the central bank’s next meeting on Sept. 18—if the economic data allowed, with officials highlighting tentative signs of cooling inflation and a moderation in wage growth while U.S. employment creeps higher. 

“If we were to see, for example, inflation moving down quickly—or more or less in line with expectations—growth remains reasonably strong, and the labor market remains consistent with its current condition, then I would think that a rate cut could be on the table at the September meeting,” Powell said at his press conference in Washington after the rate decision was announced. 

Wall Street extended a pattern of funneling money rotating into small caps and other previously unloved corners of the market with breadth broadening, with the Russell 2000 Index advancing 2.3% while the S&P 500’s equal-weighted index that strips out market-cap bias climbing 1.3%. 

Traders stepped up their rotation out of Big Technology shares and into everything from small-capitalization stocks to value plays this month, starting after a cooling print on consumer prices on July 11 in anticipation the Fed is about to begin a rate reduction cycle.

Investors are awaiting further signals from Powell on whether the market’s aggressive dovish bid is now overdone after U.S. labor costs rose less than forecast in the second quarter, while the Fed’s preferred measure of underlying U.S. inflation—the so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index—rose at a tame pace in June, near the Fed’s 2% target.

“Markets still believe officials will cut rates in September because a failure to do so would leave the next opportunity in December after the election,” said Scott Colyer, chief executive at Advisors Asset Management. “And that’s just too long to wait with unemployment rising.”

With policymakers keeping borrowing costs unchanged for an eighth straight meeting, traders await Powell’s address at Jackson Hole economic symposium in late August for further clues on the path of future rate cuts. 

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.