U.S. stock futures opened slightly higher in extended trading Wednesday following a pivotal session on Wall Street marked by the Federal Reserve’s long-anticipated move to hike short-term interest rates for the first time in three years.
Contracts tied to the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq were firmly in the green at the start of futures trading after all three indexes rebounded in the final 30 minutes of Wednesday’s main session from an initial decline in the immediate aftermath of the Fed’s latest policy decision released at 2 p.m. ET.
At the end of its two-day policy-setting meeting, the central bank revealed it will lift the benchmark Federal Funds Rate by 0.25%, to a target range of 0.25% to 0.50%. The move was in line with what market participants had anticipated after Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated in Congressional testimony earlier this month a 25-basis-point bump was distinctly…
