MW: U.S. Stocks Are Little Changed As Investors Await Fed
U.S. stocks were little changed, following a four-day rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as Greece worked toward a new government and investors awaited a Federal Reserve decision on whether it will boost the economy.
The S&P 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,356.90 at 9:38 a.m. New York time. The index rallied 3.3 percent over four sessions.
“The market may move on a bit from Greece now,” Rick Fier, director of equity trading at Conifer Securities LLC in New York, said in a telephone interview today. His firm oversees more than $12 billion. “Some of the question marks will get smaller. Yet people are looking for comfort from the Fed.”
Equity futures rose earlier as Greek political leaders struck an agreement on a governing coalition that will seek relief from austerity measures tied to emergency loans, with New Democracy head Antonis Samaras set to be the prime minister. The Fed will probably decide today to expand its so-called Operation Twist program beyond $400 billion to spur growth and buy protection against a deeper crisis in Europe, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
Operation Twist seeks to lower borrowing costs by extending the average maturity of the securities in the central bank’s portfolio.
Expectations for further policy action gave stocks their first back-to-back weekly gain since April on June 15. The S&P 500 earlier this month was on the brink of a so-called correction, or a 10 percent drop from a recent peak, on concern about a global slowdown and a worsening of Europe’s crisis.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rita Nazareth in New York at rnazareth@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at nbaker7@bloomberg.net
