Market Ends Dull Day With a Sigh

Cardillo remarked that Bernanke didn't provide the market with much new information, aside from his suggestion that the Fed might not be cutting interest rates very much, if at all, at its next meeting. "That helps inflation watchers like myself," he said.

Also on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the International Monetary Fund will predict a 25% chance of global recession while slashing its 2008 global economic growth forecast to 3.7%, down from its January prediction of 4.1%.

On the corporate front, seed producer Monsanto (MON Quote) posted the surging bottom line it had predicted last week and reaffirmed its full-year earnings guidance. Still, the low end of that outlook dips just below analyst expectations, and shares finished down 0.8%.

Having a better day was Best Buy (BBY Quote), which beat analysts' fourth-quarter profit estimates and said earnings and revenue for fiscal 2009 should at least be in line with forecasts. Shares of Best Buy gained 1.8%.

But Merill Lynch (MER Quote) shed 1.5% after CNBC reported that the securities firm is planning on laying off between 10% and 15% of its nonbroker employees next month.

The Wall Street Journal reported that National City (NCC Quote) is considering selling itself to fellow regional bank KeyCorp (KEY Quote). National City shares surrendered 7.7%, and KeyCorp climbed 3.6%.

Pfizer (PFE Quote), meanwhile, announced that it's discontinuing advanced-stage testing on a proposed skin-cancer drug, citing the compound's lack of superiority to standard chemotherapy. The stock ticked up 0.6%.

On the data side, the ADP said its March employment report showed a gain of 8,000 workers last month, easily surpassing the expectation for a 45,000 decline. Also, that partly reversed the upwardly revised loss of 18,000 for February.

Also, the Commerce Department reported that factory orders declined 1.3% in February -- a full percentage-point improvement from the prior month's revised reading, but worse than the 0.8% drop that economists were expecting.

Elsewhere, crude stockpiles for the third week in March were unchanged at 311.8 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Commodity prices were climbing. Crude oil added $3.85 to $104.83 a barrel, and gold tacked on $12.40 to $900.20 an ounce.

The moves came even though the dollar dipped 0.2% against the euro to $1.5688. Against the yen, however, the greenback firmed fractionally to 102.37.

Treasury prices were mixed. The 10-year note was down 11/32 in price to yield 3.60%, but the 30-year bond was tacking on 3/32 in price, yielding 4.41%.

Markets abroad lifted on the heels of Tuesday's financials-led rally in the U.S., which had brought the Dow up nearly 400 points. In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 surged 4% overnight to 13,189, and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong leaped 3.2%. Among European bourses, London's FTSE 100, Germany's Xetra Dax, and the Paris Cac were each up 0.9% or more.