Wall Street slightly higher ahead of the testimony Yellen

Wall Street slightly higher ahead of the testimony Yellen


 Stocks on Wall Street ended with modest gains on Wednesday (Thursday morning GMT ) , as investors await the testimony of the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Janet Yellen before Congress on Thursday .

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 18.75 points ( 0.12 percent) to 16198.41 , AFP reported .

The broad-based S & P 500 ended flat , increasing only 0.04 points to 1845.16 , while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 4.48 points ( 0.10 percent) to 4292.06 .

Analysts said investors were awaiting testimony Yellen told a Senate panel on Thursday after a stream of disappointing economic data that has been largely blamed partly due to the extremely cold weather .

The S & P 500 back to try to reach a new peak , but failed to achieve the record .

" We have seen a very strong rally for the S & P 500 , " said David Levy , portfolio manager at Kenjol Capital Management . " What we are waiting for a catalyst to push the market higher . "

Levy today said the data showed a big jump in new home sales in January , while positive , is already " priced " into stocks .

Retailer Target jumped 7.0 percent since fiscal fourth -quarter net profit of 1.30 dollars per share came at the highest end of the range of estimates of the company . However , profits fell 45.9 percent from a year ago and the company said 2014 profit will be burdened by the costs exceeded giant .

Strong earnings and expansion of the share repurchase program from Lowes home improvement store chain pushing its shares up 5.4 percent .

EBay advanced 2.1 percent as the online market are involved in a new war of words with activist investor Carl Icahn Icahn 's insistence following two days ago in order to separate eBay ( spin off ) its subsidiary , PayPal .

First Solar tumbled 9.1 percent as earnings failed to meet expectations . Quarterly earnings came to 89 cents per share , 10 cents below expectations . Income is also disappointing .

Bond prices rose . The yield on U.S. 10-year bond fell to 2.67 percent from 2.70 percent late Tuesday , while the 30 - year fell to 3.63 percent from 3.66 percent .