Positive Reaction To Fed Minutes Leads To Rally On Wall Street

(RTTNews) - With traders reacting positively to the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting, stocks moved sharply higher during trading on Wednesday. The rally on the day largely offset the sell-off that was seen in the previous session.

After falling sharply over the course of the past month, gold stock showed a substantial move back to the upside on the day. The NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index surged up by 7.6 percent, bouncing off yesterday's nearly six-year closing low.

The rebound by gold stocks came as the price of the precious metal moved notably higher in electronic trading in reaction to the Fed minutes.

Biotechnology stocks also saw significant strength on the day, driving the NYSE Arca Biotechnology Index up by 2.8 percent. Strong gains by Exact Sciences (EXAS) and Alexion (ALXN) helped lift the index off its worst closing level in over a month.

Considerable strength was also visible among interest rate-sensitive utilities stocks, as reflected by the 2.3 gain posted by the Dow Jones Utilities Average. Exelon (EXC), FirstEnergy (FE) and ConEd (ED) posted strong gains.

Semiconductor, software, commercial real estate, and banking stocks also saw notable strength, while airline stocks were among the few groups to buck the uptrend.

The major averages continued to perform well going into the close, ending the session near their best levels. The Dow jumped 274.83 points or 1.6 percent to 16,994.22, the Nasdaq soared 83.39 points or 1.9 percent to 4,468.59 and the S&P 500 surged up 33.79 points or 1.8 percent to 1,968.89.