Stocks tick higher after zig-zagging on Fed chair’s comments

By STAN CHOE
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is ticking higher after the head of the Federal Reserve signaled last week’s stunningly strong jobs report isn’t likely to change where interest rates are heading on its own, as some investors had feared. The S&P 500 was 0.8% higher in Tuesday afternoon trading. Earlier, comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell sent stocks from losses to big gains and then back and forth a couple times. High inflation and how high the Fed will take interest rates to combat it have been at the center of Wall Street’s wild movements for more than a year.