NEW YORK – Investors sent stocks higher Wednesday following two days of losses, even after a worse-than-expected reading on the economy.
The Commerce Department said gross domestic product shrank at an annual rate of 6.1 percent during the first three months of the year. That was a much steeper drop than the 5 percent forecast by economists polled by Thomson Reuters.
Though the report shows the recession has yet to loosen its grip on the country, investors are not losing hope.
The market is eager for the Federal Reserve’s assessment of the economy, expected later Wednesday at the conclusion of its interest rate meeting. Investors also are curious to see if the central bank will accelerate its buying of Treasurys. After lowering its target rate to a range of zero to 0.25 percent, the Fed started buying government debt in March to try to lower rates in the market even further.
The Dow remains 22 percent above its early March lows, but stocks have been vacillating over the past several days on fears of a swine flu pandemic and ongoing concern about the health of the country’s biggest banks.
In the first half hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrials rose 93.27, or 1.2 percent, to 8,110.22. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 9.20, or 1.1 percent, to 864.36, and the Nasdaq composite index advanced 17.73, or 1.1 percent, to 1,691.54.