Shrugging off initial setbacks, the broader U.S. equity markets witnessed a steady uptrend over the past couple of trading days and hit record-high territory in a month historically known as the worst for the benchmark indices. The stock market rally was driven by broad-based expectations of an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve. However, despite a half-percentage-point rate cut to a range of 4.75% to 5.00%, akin to the expectations — the first rate cut in four years — the markets failed to hold on to ...