U.S. stocks rallied closer to their records after the head of the Federal Reserve finally said out loud what Wall Street has been expecting for a while: Cuts to interest rates are coming soon to help the economy. The S&P 500 rose 1.1% Friday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the time has come to lower its main interest rate from a two-decade high. The index is back within 0.6% of its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite added 1.5%. Treasury yields fell in the bond market.
