Wall Street rallies on Fed meeting stimulus discussion

A day after U.S. stocks briefly topped four-year highs before fading and posting losses at the close, investors got what they wanted in the release of Federal Reserve minutes from a policy making meeting three weeks ago.

All American Investor

The minutes of the July 31-Aug. 1 meeting show many Fed officials speaking with increased urgency about the need to provide more help for a weak U.S. economy. Further support would be needed "fairly soon" unless the economy improved significantly, the minutes show, although they didn't detail what steps might be taken.
In late afternooon trading and after the release of the Fed minutes, the Dow Jones industrial average rebounded sharply although it is still below its opening level while rebounds in the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite index pushed them into positive territory.

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Eight Stocks now make up Fifty Percent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

These eight stocks now make up 50 percent of the Dow Jones Industrial average.

Stocks and weighting in percent.

• IBM (9.4)


• ExxonMobil (7.89)
  


• Chevron (6.96)
  


• McDonalds (5.95)
  


• Johnson and Johnson (5.91)
  


• Proctor and Gamble (5.47)
  


• Walmart (5.39)
  


• 3M (5.11)

Cumulatively that is 52.08 percent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW).

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Circuit Breaker Halt Trading on the Dow Jones

The Dow Jones industrial average would have to fall 1,100 points on the day to trigger the first trading halt.

If that decline is reached before 2 p.m., the market will shut down for an hour. If the threshold is breached between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m., the halt will last 30 minutes. No trading stops would take place if the plunge occurs after 2:30 p.m.

If the index were to fall 2,200 points before 1 p.m., the market would close for two hours. If such a decline took place between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., there would be a one-hour pause. The market would close for the day if stocks sank to that level after 2 p.m.

In the event of a 3,350-point decline, the market would close for the day, regardless of the time.