Reuters
A man reaches out to grab a flag as he slips off the "gostra", a pole covered in grease, during the celebrations for the religious feast of St Julian, patron of the town of St Julian's, outside Valletta August 31, 2014
The Dow closed just shy of the 20,000 mark - getting within just 40 points of the record midday.
Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composites also finished in the green the day before the Federal Reserve's big December interest rate announcement.
We've got today's headlines, but first, the scoreboard:
- Dow: 19.904.46, +108.83, (0.64%)
- S&P 500: 2,271.63, +14.67, (0.77%)
- Nasdaq: 5,463.83, +51.29, (1.13%)
- US 10-year yield: 2.481%, +0.002
- The Federal Reserve kicked off their December meeting. The two-day meeting kicked off on Tuesday with the central bank's interest rate decision coming tomorrow.
- Bill Gates thinks stocks are 'expensive.' The founder of Microsoft told CNBC that he believes low interest rates at the Fed have allowed investors to pile into the market and pushed stocks into lofty territory. He said it's "kind of amazing that interest rates have stayed so low for so long."
- Google is spinning out its self-driving car division. The new company, called Waymo, will focus on the self-driving technology but not produce its own cars.
- The CEO of Facebook's virtual reality arm stepped down. Brendan Iribe, the CEO of Oculus, announced he was leaving the role of CEO, but would remain to lead up a new team developing high end VR for Pcs.
- SeaWorld is opening a park in Abu Dhabi without whales. This will be the first park without the signature orca attraction. SeaWorld has been slowly moving away from the whales since the release of the documentary "Blackfish."
ADDITIONALLY:
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