The Dow Jones industrial average rose 197 points, or 1.12%, to 17,779, the S&P 500 gained 24 points, or 1.18%, to 2,090 and the Nasdaq Composite added 66 points, or 1.3%, to 5,096.
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Energy traded a touch higher after briefly gaining more than 1 percent as crude tried to extend gains after settling up 6.3 percent Wednesday.
“The Fed has just created more uncertainty in the markets”, said Oanda analyst Craig Erlam.
The Fed removed a line from September’s statement saying that global economic and financial developments “may restrain economic activity somewhat”, saying only that the central bank is monitoring the worldwide situation.
“I don’t think they’re going to raise until 2016 because there are too many questions right now”. Shares of both companies were briefly halted.
Rite Aid shares lost a few of their Tuesday’s gains and were trading down 7.2% at $8.05, a day after Walgreens Boots Alliance said it would buy the smaller drugstore operator for $9.4 billion.
Stocks have rallied sharply in recent weeks, pulling out of their summer lows amid persistent easy-money policies around the world.
“We’ve come a long way”, Brian Fenske, head of sales trading at ITG, said.
Stocks were little swayed by the latest reading on U.S. economic growth, which showed a slowdown as expected.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its view on third-quarter GDP, showing that real gross domestic product, adjusted for price changes, rose by a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.5%. In the second quarter, real GDP increased by 3.9%.
Other markets: European stocks were under pressure (http://www.marketwatch.com/storyno-meta-for-guid), with the FTSE 100 index dropping 1% (http://www.marketwatch.com/storyno-meta-for-guid) on losses linked to weak results from banks and energy companies.
In Europe, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index (^STOXX) was about 0.4 percent lower Thursday morning.
“The tone from the Fed was very different”.
Express Scripts Holding Co and CVS Health Corp said they had dropped Philidor Rx, a specialty pharmacy used by Valeant, from their networks in a sign the fall-out from the drugmaker’s connection with the specialty pharmacy is spreading.
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The S&P healthcare sector ended the session up 0.4 percent, making it the top-performing sector, as Allergan’s shares shot up 6 percent to US$304.38. Gold futures fell $26.60 to $1,149.50 an ounce as of 11:37 a.m.
