NEW YORK -- Wall Street extended its advance in early trading Monday as investors tried to assess whether the Federal Reserve will keep lowering interest rates.
Stocks rallied Friday after the Fed cut the discount rate, the interest it charges on its loans to banks, and said it would stand ready to make further moves to keep credit market losses from hurting the economy. The Fed is not scheduled to meet formally until Sept. 18, and investors are expected to remain jittery until then.
Analysts said Monday will likely show the real impact of the Fed's moves, as much of the previous session's rally was pinned on big institutional investors like hedge funds buying shares to cover their positions. Some investors had been shorting the market — betting stocks would move lower — and were caught off guard when the central bank cut the discount rate.
In the first few minutes of trading, the Dow Jones industrials rose 39.10, or 0.30 percent, to 13,118.18.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.03, or less than 0.01 percent, to 1445.97; the Nasdaq rose 6.04, or 0.24 percent, to 2,511.07.
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