Stocks Mostly Lower ahead of Bernanke/Dollar Weakens

Stocks were mostly lower Tuesday morning ahead of a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke scheduled for 13:15 EDT. Stocks got a boost at the open as the Fed announced a new lending facility designed to purchase commercial paper, which means the Fed is now making unsecured loans directly to businesses, a highly unusual departure from its normal procedure. The Fed normally makes secured loans to banks.

In recent trade, the DOW was moving 45.88 points (-0.46%) lower after having risen nearly 170 points at the open. The broader S&P 500 was down 5.56 points (-0.53%) while the NASDAQ was losing 11.61 points (-0.62%). The euro and pound were making strong comebacks against the dollar, gaining 1.08% and 0.88% respectively. The dollar was higher against the yen by 0.42%.

"The dollar weakened against the high-yielding euro and pound in overnight trading as S&P futures gained over 2%," said Matthew Carniol, chief currency strategist at TheLFB-forex.com. "That was accompanied by dollar strength against the yen, which had reached its highest level against the greenback since early April during Monday's trading. The 1.0% rate cut from the RBA had traders speculating on a coordinated rate cut from Fed, BoE and ECB."

Crude oil for October delivery was recently moving nearly $2 higher to $89.76 per barrel while gold for December delivery was gaining nearly $13 to $875.50 per ounce.

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