After posting strong gains yesterday, the major U.S. indexes traded largely flat ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve announcement today regarding potential stimulus. Coming into midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
What's driving the market
Simply stated, two words are driving the market today: the Fed. As mentioned earlier, the Federal Reserve is concluding its two-day monetary policy meeting. The past few weeks have painted a distinctly less rosy portrait of the global recovery, as growth in China and America appeared to have slowed and the fiscal situation in Europe looks bad and may be getting worse. As a result, markets have increasingly expected the Fed to provide additional monetary stimulus to buoy the U.S. economy in the short term.
Among Dow components, shares of consumer products giant Procter & Gamble