The Federal Reserve released their minutes from their September 2010 Federal Open Market Committee meeting along with a summary of the meeting’s discussions. In the summary (which you can read here), the committee talks about the struggling recovery, contracted bank lending, high unemployment and slightly increasing household spending. The upshot was that the Fed is considering additional stimulus measures, will maintain the current fed rate, and is focused on the purchase of Treasuries for quantitative easing.
The ban on offshore drilling was lifted today, a total of seven weeks earlier than it was set to. It will be interesting to see the difference this will have on the price of oil and the unemployment rate.
Investors reacted mildly, but favorably to the FOMC statement and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained another 10.06 points to 11,020.40 today. The Nasdaq climbed 15.59 points to 2,417.92 and the S&P 500 rose 4.45 points to 1,169.77.
European markets were down today while Asian markets were mixed, China’s Shanghai Composite the only one showing gains.
Stocks in the news: JPMorgan Chase and Co (NYSE: JPM), Starbucks Corp (NASDAQ: SBUX), BP Plc (NYSE: BP).
