Wall Street's main indexes soared on Thursday with the S&P 500 and the Dow hitting intraday record highs after the Federal Reserve kicked off its monetary easing cycle with half-a-percentage point reduction and forecast more interest rate cuts were on the horizon.

The Federal Reserve's closely followed overnight reverse-repo facility already has begun to reflect Wednesday's big interest-rate cut. Wall Street firms rushed to park extra cash overnight at the facility in the wake of the pandemic,

Markets on Wall Street were positioned to open at record highs Thursday after the Federal Reserve issued a bigger-than-usual interest rate cut intended to fortify a cooling labor market and prevent a recession.