Dow rallies 900 points as investors bet the Fed can slow inflation without causing a recession; European stocks close lower as focus turns to Fed; EU proposes Russian oil ban 
Stocks jumped sharply on Wednesday in a relief rally from their 2022 doldrums after the Federal Reserve raised rates by a widely anticipated half percentage point and Chairman Jerome Powell ruled out getting even more aggressive in the central bank’s inflation-fighting campaign. 
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 932.27 points, or 2.81%, to close at 34,061.06. The S&P 500 gained 2.99% to 4,300.17. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.19% to 12,964.86. The central bank announced that it was hiking its benchmark interest rate 50-basis-points, or 0.5 percentage points, and would start reducing its balance sheet in June. That is the biggest rate increase since 2000 for the Fed, but the move was widely expected by investors. 
Stocks moved sharply higher when Powell said the central bank was not considering a 75-basis-point hike in future meetings. 
The gains were broad across the board for stocks. Large tech stocks moved higher following the Fed announcements, with Apple and Google-parent Alphabet gaining more than 4% each. Energy giant Chevron rose 3.1%, and Exxon Mobil added nearly 4%. 
Starbucks and Airbnb, which were already higher earlier in the day after better-than-expected quarterly reports, surged 9.8% and 7.7%, respectively. 
One of the rare weak spots was Lyft, which plummeted nearly 30% after the ridesharing company gave weak guidance for the current quarter as it expects to invest in driver supply. Rival Uber dropped more than 4%. 

The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally closed down by 1%. Retail stocks fell 2.3% to lead losses as most sectors and major bourses slid into negative territory. 
Belgian chemicals company Solvay added almost 6% after raising its guidance. Kindred Group shares climbed 9% after U.S. hedge fund Corvex Management disclosed a 10% stake in the online gambling company. 
At the bottom of the European blue-chip index, Swedish construction company Skanska slid almost 10% after its first-quarter earnings report. 
Source: CNBC, Investing.com