us stock indexes surrendered most of their gains in the final hour of trade wednesday after hitting session highs following the federal reserve decision to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to a range of 525 to 55 the highest level in 22 years as expected at his press conference fed chair powell said future interest rate decisions will be taken meetingtomeeting while emphasizing that upcoming moves will depend on economic data released between now and their next policy meeting in september on tuesday the dow jones industrial average rose 27 points or 008 to 35 438 the sp 500 increased 13 points or 028 to 4567 and the nasdaq composite gained 86 points or 061 to 14145 the federal reserve on wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarterpoint to a range of 52555 the highest level in 22 years as was widely expected the central bank also left the door open to more rate hikes later this year with policymakers signaling a willingness to do more to bring elevated inflation down to a 2 yearly target the feds policy statement indicated that more work may be still needed on interest rates to get inflation back down to 2 in a statement the fed said that it remained highly attentive to inflation risks and the committee will continue to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy the statement also kept language that the central bank would look at the data the cumulative monetary tightening to date and the lags with which interestrate policy affects the economy in determining the extend of additional policy firming that may be appropriate marketwatch live coveragefed meeting dow ticks higher as powell says future hikes depend on economic data the three major stock indexes were coming off their session highs in the final hour of trading on wednesday and falling back to the levels before the fed released its interest rate decisions at 2 pm eastern time we remain committed to bringing inflation back to our 2 goal chair jerome powell said in a press conference after the fed rate hike no one should doubt that he said that the central bank would be going meeting by meeting in making decisions about future interestrate increases it is certainly possible that we would raise in september powell said i would say it is possible we could raise rates at the september meeting if the data warranted and it possible we would choose to hold steady at that meeting futures markets are pricing in a 361 chance of an additional hike this year after wednesdays meeting while also pricing in the first full rate cut for july 2024 according to cme fedwatch tool see heres how stocks bonds and the dollar have traded on every fed day over the past year paradoxically todays fed meeting was one of the most certain and uncertain of the cycle said gurpreet gill global fixed income macro strategist at goldman sachs asset management however investors remain divided on whether this marks the last increase in the current tightening campaign we think recent data is consistent with the us policy rate peaking in july as core cpi inflation slowed sharply in june but any renewed signs of inflation strength in key data like the employment cost index released on friday and upcoming pce inflation releases still have potential to extend the hiking path she said in emailed comments on wednesday meanwhile investors on wednesday were digesting more corporate earnings shares in tech behemoths microsoft msft and alphabet googl went in opposite directions following their results and guidance late on tuesday traders are in the middle of a week in which about 170 companies from the sp 500 representing roughly 40 of the benchmarks market capitalization will report their earnings the results of att t boeing ba cocacola ko and general dynamics gd were also published early wednesday while meta platforms meta lam research lrcx and ebay ebay will feature after the close in us economic data us new home sales fell 25 to an annual rate of 697000 in june from a revised 715000 in the prior month the commerce department reported wednesday this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal