Stocks maintain gains following Fed hike, Dow rises 100 points

Stocks maintained gains Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced its much anticipated 0.75 percentage point rate increase to fight inflation, at the conclusion of its two-day meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 65 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 gained 1.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite increased 2.3%.

Investors have been eager for more insight about the path for interest rates going forward, as they continue to worry that the central bank's efforts to bring inflation down will push the economy into a recession – many regard as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP readings. However, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of recessions, uses multiple other factors to determine one. Second quarter GDP data is due out Thursday.

Stocks started the day on a high note after getting a boost from tech earnings. Alphabet shares rose 5% after the tech giant's quarterly report showed strong revenue from Google's search business. Microsoft gained about 5% after reporting a 40% jump in revenue growth for Azure and cloud services. That said, both companied posted earnings and revenue that fell below analyst estimates.

"Earnings growth estimates continue to slip, even for the technology sector, which typically holds up relatively well during economic slowdowns," Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, told CNBC. "Pressure from a pullback in consumer spending likely contributed to EPS/sales shortfalls, as all measures of consumer confidence have deteriorated sharply from peaks around mid-2021."

Enphase Energy also popped on the back of its latest results, trading about 15% higher. Chipotle also added 13% following its mixed second-quarter earnings release.

There are more major earnings reports to come. On Wednesday, Qualcomm, Ford and Meta Platforms will report at the end of the day.

More than 150 S&P 500 companies have reported calendar second-quarter earnings thus far. Of those names, roughly 70% have beaten analyst expectations, FactSet data shows.

"With so many moving parts to consider, we expect markets to remain volatile after the FOMC meeting," wrote Mark Haefele of UBS Global Wealth Management. "With the markets anticipating a 3.3% fed funds rate by year-end, this means that after this week's meeting, there may be around 100bps of rate hikes by end-December. But the pace of hikes remains uncertain."