Post-Fed Volatility Leads To Mixed Close On Wall Street

(RTTNews) - As is often the case, stocks saw considerable volatility on Wednesday following the release of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement. The major averages showed big swings back and forth before ending the session mixed.

While most of the major sectors ended the day showing only modest moves, considerable strength remained visible among housing stocks.

The Philadelphia Housing Sector Index advanced by 1.1 percent but ended the session well off its best levels of the day.

Meanwhile, commercial real estate stocks came under significant selling pressure, dragging the Morgan Stanley REIT Index down by 1.6 percent.

Moderate strength among trucking and oil stocks was offset by weakness in the tobacco, utilities, and computer hardware stocks.

While the tech-heavy Nasdaq managed to end the day in positive territory, the Dow and the S&P 500 closed in the red.

The Nasdaq rose 9.90 points or 0.3 percent to 3,626.37, while the Dow dipped 21.05 points 0.1 percent to 15,499.54 and the S&P 500 edged down 0.23 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 1,685.73.