Investors have been wondering if the Fed will buy more bonds to reduce long-term interest rates and help the economy. Bernanke’s remarks on Friday suggest that such action is possible.

It took investors a little while to figure out what to make of his comments. Stocks were higher in the morning, then gave up most of their gains as soon as his comments were released.

They soon recovered. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 125 points to 13,126. That’s a gain of almost 1 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 11 points to 1,410. The Nasdaq is up 22 points to 3,071.

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