STORY: U.S. stocks ended higher on Wednesday, with the Dow climbing 1%, the S&P 500 adding about two-thirds of a percent and the Nasdaq adding one-third of a percent.The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday as expected.The market had been muted ahead of the Fed decision as investors, while widely expecting the cut, were concerned the central bank would take a more hawkish tone on its policy outlook. Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, said that given the impending release of key data - including next week's nonfarm payrolls report for November - investors should be wary of watching every twist and turn of Wall Street's main indexes."We'll have to see how this all plays out over the ensuing weeks. And then next week we're going to get a lot of data. So we'll be able to determine if the Fed is right or wrong in cutting the 25 basis points. So I would watch the market over the next week or two as opposed to intraday."The rate-sensitive small cap Russell 2000 index outperformed large caps with a 1.3% gain to close at a record high.Among the S&P 500's 11 major industry sectors, all but two showed gains. Industrials advanced the most, closing up 1.8%. Its biggest boost was from energy equipment manufacturer GE Vernova, which surged more than 15.5% after forecasting higher revenue in 2026, signaling strong demand for its AI-related infrastructure.In other AI-related stock news, shares of Oracle plunged more than 10% in extended trading, after the company missed a slew of Wall Street estimates for sales, operating profit and future cloud-computing contract growth, a sign that corporate spending on its cloud services may be cooling amid broader concerns of an AI bubble.