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Category: Market News
Fed’s latest action doesn’t impress investors
It’s going to take more than low interest rates to fire up investors.
The Federal Reserve’s latest plan to help the economy failed to impress Wall Street on Wednesday. Stocks finished slightly lower for the day, and not much better than they were before the Fed announcement.
Stock Market News for December 23, 2011
Stock Market News for December 23, 2011-Investors received a pre-Christmas gift in the form of encouraging economic data, which led the benchmarks higher on Thursday.
$2.8 trillion lost in market turmoil so far
If stock market gyrations make you queasy, you may not want to read on.
The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index has lost $2.8 trillion in value since the stock market slide began on July 22. Some $600 billion of that went up in smoke on Wednesday, when the index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both dropped about 520 points.
Not surprisingly, the stock market’s wild swings in recent weeks have sent investors and retirees scurrying to their financial advisors for some hand holding. The main message they’re hearing: Stay put.
“Try to take a step back from the day-to-day,” said Chris Philips, senior investment analyst with Vanguard. “Reacting to these ups and downs and sideways swings can actually do more harm than good for most investors.”
Investors flee to gold
Stock-shocked investors are fleeing to gold, pushing the precious metal to new heights.
Gold reached a new intraday high of $1,782.50 per ounce in electronic trading before backing down to $1,746.20. That’s an increase of $33, or about 2%, compared to its Monday close. On Monday, gold broke $1,700 for the first time.
The current flight to gold has been by a nasty stock market plunge. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 624 points, or about 5.5%, and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 dropped nearly 7%. It was the worst day on Wall Street since the 2008 fiscal crisis.