First the scoreboard:
Dow: 14,035.67, +53.91, +0.39%
S&P 500: 1,530.94, +11.15, +0.73%
NASDAQ: 3,213.59. +21.56, +0.68%
And now the top stories:
- The only major economic datapoint for the day was the NAHB housing market index. Homebuilder sentiment fell to 46 in February, from 47 the previous month. Why today's disappointing housing report was actually good news >
- Google hit $800 a share for the first time today and is up 13 percent year-to-date. Google's stock is being driven up by optimism about its outlook.
- Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles today revealed their new plan to cut deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. The strategy called – A Bipartisan Path Forward to Securing America's Future –involves cutting Medicare and Medicaid funding by roughly $600 billion and gain $600 billion through tax reform.
- Stocks started the morning strong, and the Dow closed back above the 14,000 level and the S&P rose to a new five-year high and blue chips are one percent off their all-time high.
- Nutritional and weightloss supplement seller Herbalife is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings at 4:15 p.m. ET. Analysts polled by Bloomberg are looking for earnings of $1.03 per share, on revenue of $1.049 billion. Follow it LIVE at Business Insider >
- All eyes are already on tomorrow's FOMC minutes release at 2 p.m. ET. The question on everyone's mind is when will the Fed begin to tighten monetary policy. Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna thinks the process could begin as early as June. "…Based on our GDP, unemployment and inflation forecasts, we believe policymakers will eventually announce their intention to slow the pace of QE by June and to halt QE altogether by the end of December," he writes.
- Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank's Xiao Fu says the FOMC minutes could be huge for gold investors. This is because the biggest drag on gold prices is the drop in equity risk premium, which, is impacted by rising yields. And the recent rise in bond yields was driven by the December FOMC minutes which showed for the first time that the Fed was thinking of wrapping up QE by the end of 2013. 10 enormous gold reserves >
- Don't Miss: The 40 most unusual economic indicators >