Just one stock — Constellation Brands — that we follow showed a dip in Wednesday’s stock trading. All other stocks posted gains ranging from 1% for Campari Group to 10.27% of Eastside Distilling. That sharp gain for Eastside brought the stock price to just 66 cents.
Among the major bev/al stocks, Pernod Ricard was up 2.92%, Brown-Forman 2.96%, Anheuser-Busch InBev 3.51%, Diageo 2.38%, Molson Coors 0.90%, and MGP Ingredients, 4.36%.
Major stock indexes also rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 blue-chip stock rose 1% and the S&P 500 closed the day up 1.4%.
The rebound followed the Federal Reserve’s 0.75 percentage point increase in interest rates. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, who had insisted for over a year that the rising cost of living wasn’t anything to worry about, now says the biggest rate increase since 1994 will rein in inflation without denting economic growth or destabilizing markets. It will boost the interest rate charge for credit card debt, car loans and some student loans. Mortgage rates aren’t tied to the Fed’s action because they track 10-year Treasury notes. But mortgage rate have risen two percentage points in recent months and are now near 6% in some instances. A year ago, rates reported by Freddie Mac were 2.96 percent.
While Powell said he believed the Fed would be able to avoid a recession, Wells Fargo economists in a note to clients moments after the Fed press conference ended said a recession next year “seems more likely than not.” And Seema Shah, chief global strategist of Principal Global Investors told clients, “it is possible that markets find their footing after the recent few days of severe volatility. However, once the data starts to roll over with greater speed, renewed equity market declines are likely while credit markets are almost certain to face greater pain.”