Market Watch 09/22/2009

Today is Tuesday , The weather is sunny in here!

 

A rebound in commodities drew investors back into the stock market and helped push stocks to new highs for 2009.

 

In an about-face , the dollar weakened against other major currencies. That helped lift commodities like oil and gold as well as energy and material stocks. Financial stocks also rose sharply.

 

The gains came as the Federal Reserve began a two-day meeting on interest rates.

 

The Fed is widely expected to keep rates at their record low of near zero for the time being. Rock-bottom interest rates have helped fuel the market’s nearly seven-month old rally, making cash plentiful and cheap and encouraging investors to buy up riskier assets.

 

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 51.01, or 0.5 percent, to 9,829.87.The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 7.00, or 0.7 percent, to 1,071.66, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 8.26, or 0.4 percent, to 2,146.30. Both indexes are at 11-month highs.

Gold and silver prices rose after three days of drops, while oil prices gained $1.84 to settle at $71.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Financial stocks rose after Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove raised his target price on Bank of America Corp. to $25 a share. Shares of the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank rose 36 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $17.61.