The stock market close today found the Dow Jones Industrial Average in positive territory after a late rally pushed stocks higher. The markets had been trading down through midday, as concerns over the crisis in Iraq continue to mount.
Here's the full scorecard at today's stock market close:
U.S. Growth Slashed Again: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) slashed its U.S. growth forecast for 2014 and said it expects the country won't reach full employment until 2017. The IMF said that it cut U.S. growth from April's figure of 2.8% to 2% after a weak first quarter and poor winter weather.
Electric Performance: Shares of Tesla Motors Inc.(Nasdaq: TSLA) soared more than 6% after investors cheered the company's plans to share its patent portfolio. The gain pulls Tesla back into the black for the month. The company decided to reveal its patents so potential competitors acting in "good faith" can help Tesla advance electric-car technologies.
The IPO of the Year: Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group is planning to make its initial public offering debut this summer, and the deal could surpass Facebook Inc.'s (Nasdaq: FB) $16 billion IPO as the largest U.S. tech IPO ever. Today, the company updated its IPO filing with first-quarter financial figures, which revealed that the company tripled its net income to hit $3.71 billion. The company also announced the names of the 27-person partnership that has voting rights in the company.
Banks Behaving Badly: U.S. regulators fined Bank of America Corp.'s(NYSE: BAC) Merrill Lynch unit $8 million and ordered a $24.4 million settlement on accusations that the company overcharged thousands of retirees and charities and failed to waive sales charges related to mutual fund products. Shares of Bank of America slid by more than 1% this afternoon.
The Fed Kicks Off Tomorrow: The fourth Federal Open Market Committee meeting of 2014 begins tomorrow morning. The Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates on Wednesday, and the central bank is also expected to continue the taper of its quantitative easing program by another $10 billion. This is the first meeting with new Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer.
Now our experts share some of the most important investment moves to make based on today's market trading - for Money Morning Members only:
This Metal Problem Could Ignite China's Smoldering Crisis: Concerns of China's growth moderating and housing prices dropping 5% this year aside, this might be the real reason for renewed easing: Recent reports indicate that copper and aluminum used as loan collateral may have been rehypothecated or, worse, may never have existed at all...
Time to Profit from the "ASCO" Effect: We love the American Society of Clinical Oncology because of the so-called "ASCO Effect" - a hefty surge in cancer-focused biotech stocks that always accompanies the start of this group's annual meeting. This year's ASCO meeting turned us on to an important new trend - one that's shaping up as the next big profit opportunity in biotech.
Europe's Unprecedented Rate-Slashing Gives Us a Classic Profit Play: The European Central Bank is attempting to employ "unconventional" policies to kick-start the economy. Using tactics never tried before, the ECB has just entered uncharted waters. But if we look at the history, we'll see the perfect opportunity to profit...
Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.