Daily Summary: Fed announces taper, Wall Street at record highs

• Federal Reserve announced reduction in asset purchases

• Wall Street indices hit record highs

• DE30 at 16,000 pts

• Oil drops after inventory build

• USD weakens, cryptos jump

Indices trade nowhere during the European session as focus was on today's FOMC decision. The Federal Reserve finally announced a decision to begin tapering. Reduction will be made at a pace of $15 billion per month, starting in November. Such pace of tapering was more or less expected therefore no major negative reaction was spotted on the stock market. To the contrary, Wall Street indices moved to fresh all-time highs as Powell assured during press conference that rate hikes are off the table for now. US dollar weakened but it was not enough to allow gold to recover from losses made earlier in the day. Both silver and gold trade lower on the day.

While definitely the most important, Fed meeting was not the only noteworthy macro event in the US. ADP employment data for October beat expectations and showed an over-500k jobs growth, setting expectations for Friday's NFP release (12:30 pm GMT). Services ISM jumped to the highest level since 1997 in October. USD and  indices saw a muted reaction to the data however.

Oil moved lower following a build in US oil inventories. WTI and Brent moved to 1-week lows a day ahead of OPEC+ meeting scheduled for Thursday. Oil producers will decide whether to maintain current output policy or bring back production quicker. Many OPEC+ members are reluctant to support output boost.

Cryptocurrencies also gained in the aftermath of FOMC meeting. Bitcoin jumped back above $63,000 while Ethereum reached a new all-time high near $4,660.

Nasdaq-100 (US100) rallied during Powell's press conference and broke above the 16,000 pts mark for the first time in history. Markets welcomed moderate pace of tapering and a rather dovish guidance on rates. Source: xStation5