US Stocks Add to Gains
Published at | Updated at
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Ahead of Wednesday’s big quarterly news conference from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its second triple-digit surge of the week. The Dow finished the day up 138 points, closing at 15,318 — a gain of 238 points in the last two days.
The Nasdaq Composite added 30 points for the day to finish at 3,482. The S&P 500 rose 13 points, closing at 1,652.
This week’s rally is a bit puzzling in that the markets are moving so strongly higher ahead of the Fed’s decision on rates and Wednesday’s presser with Ben Bernanke. Most analysts expected investors would sit on their hands and do nothing ahead of the chairman’s comments.
So what should we expect to hear Wednesday? Right now the feeling is that Mr. Bernanke and his band of policy makers will announce that they will start pulling back some of the stimulus for the economy by the fall. And that it will be quite a long time before all of that money comes out of the system.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio