Shares of growth companies like Nvidia Corp NVDA.O eased after leading a Wall Street rebound earlier this week. Investors are assessing how aggressive the Federal Reserve will be as it tightens policy after Fed Chair Jerome Powell this week said that the central bank needed to move "expeditiously" to combat high inflation and raised the possibility of a 50-basis-point hike in rates in May. The utilities sector .SPLRCU also rose sharply, hitting a record high as investors favored defensive stocks with the Russia-Ukraine war still raging after a month.