By PAN PYLAS By PAN PYLAS ADVERTISING Associated Press LONDON — Markets were buoyant Wednesday, a day after a fairly rosy assessment of the U.S. economy from the Federal Reserve boosted confidence about the state of the world’s largest economy.
By PAN PYLAS
Associated Press
LONDON — Markets were buoyant Wednesday, a day after a fairly rosy assessment of the U.S. economy from the Federal Reserve boosted confidence about the state of the world’s largest economy.
A seeming calm in Europe’s debt crisis following Greece’s successful bond swap has also fueled the optimism, that’s sent many stock indexes around the world up to multi-month highs. U.S. markets are doing even better, trading at levels not seen since the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008.
The latest bout of optimism was fueled by a more positive tone from the Fed after it kept monetary policy unchanged. It also pledged to keep its key interest rate at super-low levels until late 2014.
News that all but four of 19 major U.S. banks passed a Federal Reserve “stress test” exercise and got the green light to boost dividends and take other steps that will make their stocks more attractive to investors also helped support markets.
“Sentiment remains positive, aided by a neutral Fed statement, better U.S. economic data, and U.S. banks passing the Fed’s stress test,” said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.
