The U.S. stock market are trading up after statements released by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Stocks were relatively flat in earlier trading today as Wall Street and investors before statements were released by the Federal Reserve. With the end of QE2 around the corner, the markets were curious as to what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would decide to do next. They got their answer. Bernanke stated that the bond buying stimulus program will indeed end in June. The Fed has been focused on fighting deflationary forces by flooding large amounts of money into the U.S. financial system by buying U.S. treasuries. If and when the quantitative easing strategy ends, investors are expected to flee the bond market, pushing up borrowing costs for the government and homeowners.

Major U.S. Indices

DJIA: 12,626.86 (+0.26 percent)
S&P 500: 1,348.01 (+0.06 percent)
Nasdaq: 2,851.01 (+0.12 percent)
Russell 2000: 852.17 (-0.12 percent)

In other news:

• More on the Fed's decision to end quantitative easing and the bond buyback program. [WSJ]
• Hopefully, this puts an end to all the silliness. [NY Times]
• Sony (NYSE:) has some explaining to do as hackers infiltrate the popular PS3 Network to access over 70 million users' information. [FT]
• Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), meanwhile, explains that it hasn't been tracking iPhone users locations. [Daily Finance]
• Gold and silver ETFs like SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) and iShares Silver Trust (NYSE: SLV) continue their run as precious metals prices and trading volume keep rising. [Barron's]

Check back as more news develops.

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