Stocks Sell Ahead Of Bernanke

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is going to speak in just a couple of minutes, and the dollar has strengthened and the equity markets have sharply pared their gains going into the speech.

Bernanke is speaking today in Atlanta, and while not much is expected out of the speech, traders are looking for clues to see if the Fed will hold off raising rates for an even longer time than initially thought, and the possibility of a third round of quantitative easing.

At last check, the Dow was up 25 points, the NASDAQ was up 6 points, and the S&P 500 was up 2 points.