Market Preview: Is Apple Ripe?
Updated from 6:20 p.m ET to add latest share prices for after-hours action, link to Facebook story.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Another solid session in the books and here come the big headlines investors have been waiting for.
Wednesday won't offer much for Federal Reserve watchers beyond continued commentary about just how far Ben Bernanke & Co. are likely to go in their efforts to accommodate the U.S. economy on Thursday afternoon. For its part, Deutsche Bank sees the central bank being fairly aggressive, a view that's largely in line with the general consensus.
"Our assumption is that the Committee will move towards further monetary accommodation via additional large scale asset purchases and strongly worded verbal easing," the firm said. "The Committee is clearly biased towards easing monetary conditions and we anticipate modest downward revisions to 2012 and 2013 real GDP growth coupled with upward revisions to the unemployment rate when the central tendency forecasts are released."
Meantime, Bank of America Merrill Lynch was advising investors to be careful about going whole hog into equities right now, saying the coast isn't completely clear just yet.
"Only once the $10 trillion of central bank liquidity injected into financial markets in the past five years conspires to create a sustained recovery in global economic growth will the Great Rotation from bonds to equities take place and a massive asset allocation shift be warranted, in our opinion," the firm said. "While the recovery in US housing offers a tantalizing rationale for the Great Rotation, the US fiscal cliff and slower global growth leave us unconvinced that we'll see significant equity upside from current levels."
B of A said investors shouldn't be shy about taking some profits if stocks move higher from here but also listed three catalysts to buy stocks and sell bonds that it will be watching in 2013: "resolution to the fiscal cliff uncertainty; improvement in Chinese growth; and sustained recovery in US housing that improves consumer and bank balance sheets."