The Market On Wednesday

Good morning. It is 65 degrees, cloudy, and damp here in Upstate NY. We had our breakout day on Tuesday. Temperatures got warm around here, it literally felt hot. Not used to this t-shirt weather yet. The forecast is talking rain, rain, rain into the future with sparse breaks. Who knows.

At 8:20 a.m. futures are moderately up, the dollar is mixed, and oil is up.

Fed top dog Bernanke will offer words of economic wisdom today and all will be most attentive. This is really today's main story or so the investment journalists are saying. What will he say about the state of the US economy and our beloved interest rates.

Recapping the most present and salient news, the DOW is perched at a record three year high. Most corporations are beating Q1 expectations. The DOW seems set to hit 13,000 barring some disastrous factor or factors entering the mechanism. The rich are getting richer.

CNN: Stocks: All eyes on Bernanke

"The press conference is really the key, and will set the tone in terms of the short and medium-term duration of interest rates..."


...$21 billion merger in the health care sector...


BP reported first-quarter earnings of $1.75 per U.S.-listed share, down from $1.79 per share in the year-ago quarter.


Oil for May delivery gained 44 cents to $112.66 a barrel.