The market held its breath for much of the day today, waiting for the Federal Reserve to conclude its regularly scheduled full committee meeting. The meeting will be the first for Janet Yellen in her role as Fed chief. In this segment from Wednesday's Investor Beat, host Alison Southwick and Motley Fool analysts Bill Barker and Matt Argersinger look at what topics will dominate the press conference, and they also remind investors that while macro events such as the decisions of the Fed can have strange and unpredictable impacts on the market as a whole, Foolish individual investors focus on buying great companies, holding for the long run, and tuning out the noise.
Then, the guys take a look at some of the day's biggest movers on Wednesday's market. Shares of First Solar moved upward today, after the company raised guidance and announced a partnership with General Electric. Conversely, SolarCity fell on the news. KB Home is also up today, after announcing that revenue and net income were up for the quarter, the first quarterly profit since the housing meltdown. Oracle fell today, after missing analysts' expectations for the fourth quarter, possibly because of growing pressure from younger, more nimble competition. And WisdomTree Investments took a hit today, after a Citigroup analyst downgraded the ETF maker to "sell."
And finally, Matt and Bill each pick one stock they'll be watching closely in the week ahead. Matt takes a look at Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia, which has seen its shares get beaten down significantly as the conflict in Crimea continues, Matt discusses whether he's worried about the stock long-term. Meanwhile, Bill looks into Lennar Corp, and says that he's expecting it to beat its numbers based on the strength of other homebuilders that have reported earnings recently.
