Stocks kept climbing today as investors held out for a nearly certain rate cut at tomorrow's Fed meeting. A positive housing report and mostly good news from financials also helped keep things bullish. "Everybody is paying attention to tomorrow's rate" cut, a trader told the Wall Street Journal. The Dow was up 101.45 to 13,727.03, the Nasdaq rose 12.79 to 2,718.95, and the S&P 500 climbed 11.3 to 1,515.96.
The bite of the credit crunch could still be felt today, though, as USB announced major subprime-related write-downs. And experts warn that today's sunny housing numbers don't necessarily represent a trend. "In our view it would be a great mistake to extrapolate from the latest couple of months' numbers," says one economist. (More stock market stories.)