Stocks Rise Amid Upbeat Signs From Fed
One day after accounting worries sparked a broad stock selloff, investors regained some of their confidence, bidding stocks up again amid upbeat signals from the Federal Reserve.</br></br>The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index both registered their biggest point and percentage gains of the year. Nearly two billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the most since Sept. 21, shortly after stocks resumed trading following the terrorist attacks.</br></br>After falling 2.51% on Tuesday, the Dow industrials rebounded 1.50%, or 144.62 points, to 9762.86, after the Fed said that the outlook for recovery has become "more promising." The broad S&P 500 rose 1.17%, or 12.93 points, to 1113.57, while the Nasdaq Composite Index, dominated by large technology stocks, rose rose 20.45 points, or 1.08%, to 1913.44.</br></br>The Fed ended its two-day policy meeting by leaving its target interest rates unchanged for the first time since it began making a series of 11 rate cuts more than a year ago. Investors were encouraged that the Fed felt it was safe to stop stimulating the economy, and were heartened by the central bank's suggestion that the nation's painful economic downturn may be ending.</br></br>Many traders, however, attributed the market rebound to an announcement by Tyco International, which has been hammered in recent days on complaints that its accounts are hard to understand, that its chairman and chief financial officer would buy some Tyco stock.