U.S. stocks ended mixed Tuesday. Fed minutes show that the central bank that the U.S. economic situation improved slightly, and sees no need to change its huge debt purchase plan. The widespread food retailers stock rating cut to make the broader market was under pressure.
At 16:00 on January 4th EDT, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 20.43 points to close at 11,691.18 points, or 0.18%; the Nasdaq composite index fell 10.27 points to close at 2,681.25 points, down 0.38%; the S & P 500 index fell 1.69 points to close at 1,270.20 points, down 0.13%.
Traders said the Fed 2:00 EST (GMT 3:00) released December 14 meeting on interest rates were not significant in the unexpected place, the market and feeling a little relaxed.
The Fed in the minutes that the U.S. economy is slightly stronger rise in bond yields led to one of the reasons, but the decline in bond yields will affect the Federal Reserve to maintain low interest rates through the recovery efforts. In November 2010 the Federal Reserve announced a 600 billion U.S. dollars to buy Treasury plan, the so-called "second round of the quantitative easing policy", referred to as the "QE2". Fed officials said that despite the U.S. economic situation improved, but Fed officials "generally agreed that changes in economic prospects for the purchase of government bonds is not enough to make any adjustments made to the Scheme."
Minutes after the Fed announcement, U.S. Treasury prices mixed, with 2-year bond yields fell, the 10-year bond yields rose to 3.34%.
U.S. dollar against the euro and the yen higher. U.S. dollar index rose 0.4%. Crude oil futures prices fell below $ 90 a barrel, gold futures fell.