S&P 500 Index opens at fresh all-time highs, closes in on 3,500

• Wall Street's main indexes opened mixed on Thursday.
• FOMC Chairman Powell says Fed will target average inflation.
• Financial shares post gains on rising US T-bond yields.

Major equity indexes in the US started the day mixed on Thursday as investors assess the Federal Reserve recently announced new monetary strategy. As of writing, the S&P 500 was at a fresh all-time high of 3,486, gaining 0.23% on a daily basis. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.57% at 28,487 and the Nasdaq Composite was posting small daily losses at 11,968.

In his prepared remarks at the Jackson Hole Symposium, FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell announced that the Fed will target average inflation as its new strategy. Although the initial reaction weighed on the greenback and the US Treasury bond yields, Powell's comment about allowing only a "moderate overshoot" of inflation seems to be causing a shift in market sentiment.

At the moment, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield is up 3.3% on a daily basis. Boosted by surging T-bond yields, the rate-sensitive S&P 500 Financials Index is up 1.3% as the biggest percentage gainer among major sectors. On the other hand, the Communication Services Index is down 0.7%.

S&P 500 chart (daily)