Strong stock rally underway

UPDATED at 11: 20 a.m.:

Stocks are staging a strong rally this morning, as traders anticipate that the Fed will keep interest rates near their historic low levels this afternoon.

The Dow is up 1.3 percent, at 9,900, as it attempts to creep back to the 10,000 level.

The broader S&P 500 is up 1.2 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 1 percent.

Stocks open up

10 a.m.: Wall Street is up at opening today, as traders anticipate an optimistic report on interest rates from the Fed's Open Market Committee at 2:15 p.m.

In the first 15 minutes of trading, the Dow is up six-tenths of 1 percent.

The broader S&P 500 is up nearly seven-tenths of 1 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up three-tenths of 1 percent.

The FOMC releases its statement today following two days of meetings on interest rates. Forecasters expect the Fed to keep interest rates historically low but will listen carefully to the Fed's language about when rates may go back up.

More conservative economists and analysts believe that the Fed should begin raising interest rates -- heck, that they should have raised them months ago -- because an oversupply of cheap credit is what got us in this mess to begin with.

-- Frank Ahrens
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