Federal Open Market Committee Winds Up Meeting this Afternoon

The second and final day of Federal Open Market Committee meetings will conclude today.

Investors and analysts are anticipating that interest rates will be left unchanged at one quarter to one half of a percent.  The FOMC's decision will be announced at 2:00pm ET today.

In the Commerce Department's new home sales report released today home sales increased approximately 10.8 percent.  That is in keeping with what analysts had earlier predicted, which was an increase of about ten percent over November's figures, deemed strong by most.

Stocks recovered somewhat on Tuesday following declines last week.  At Tuesday's closing bell the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 282 points to close at 16,167.  The NASDAQ gained 49 points to close at 4,568; and the S&P 500 gained 27 points to close at 1,904.