Shares of other growth companies including Apple Inc AAPL.O, Alphabet Inc GOOGL.O and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O rose between 1.5% and 4.9%. Wall Street's main indexes got a boost in the previous session as Powell acknowledged that inflation was starting to ease after the U.S. central bank raised rates by 25 basis points. After a bruising 2022, U.S. stock markets have made a strong start to the year, with megacap companies gaining on hopes that the Fed will ease its hawkish monetary policy stance, which in turn could alleviate some pressure off their valuations.