Rate cut talk pushes Dow near 40,000 as global markets rally

It’s a pretty good morning for Wall Street — the Dow Jones Industrial Average is closing in on the 40,000 threshold for the first time in its 128-year history.

The Federal Reserve sent stocks soaring on Wednesday after officials kept interest rates unchanged and maintained their forecast for three rate cuts this year. All three major indexes ended the day at new highs and the S&P 500 crossed the key 5,200 level for the first time.

That rally continued Thursday morning.

The blue-chip Dow gained 178 points, or 0.5% to 39,690. The S&P 500 was up 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq grew 0.9%.

European and Asian stocks also climbed as the party went global. Switzerland’s central bank became the first from a wealthy, advanced economy to cut its interest rate on Thursday and the Bank of England kept its rate unchanged.

Traders in the US are now expecting a nearly 63% chance that the Fed begins cutting rates in June, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool. That’s up from a 55% forecast last week.

It’s a busy morning for investors, and Reddit is adding to the clamor as the popular online forum makes its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ‘RDDT’. The company priced its initial public offering at $34 a share on Wednesday. That gives Reddit a value of about $6.5 billion.

This story is developing and will be updated.