US stocks ended higher for the third straight day on Wednesday, 17 March 2010, with support from the financial sector. Stocks continued to cheer to Federal Reserve's decision at keeping interest rates low for an extended period.

At the end of the day on Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended higher by 47.69 points at 10733.69. Nasdaq ended higher by 11.08 points at 2389.09. S&P 500 ended higher by 6.75 points at 1166.21. Dow opened 31 points higher earlier during the day.

All ten economic sectors ended higher for the day led by the materials, financials, and energy sectors.

Energy's strength came even though oil prices saw their gains halved in the wake of a smaller-than-expected build in weekly inventories. Meanwhile, OPEC opted to keep output unchanged at its latest meeting, as had been widely expected.

Healthcare sector lagged for second straight day. Managed care providers hampered the group. Among managed care providers, Wellpoint announced that it expects earnings of at least $6.00 per share for fiscal 2010. Wall Street has forecast earnings of $6.11 per share. Meanwhile, Sanofi-Aventis slipped amid news that the World Health Organization is conducting a probe into one of the company's vaccines.

In terms of data, the Fed's directive preceded the latest producer price data, which was released this morning and showed a sharper-than-expected decline in overall prices and an in-line increase in core prices. The Labor Department's Producer Price Index declined 0.6% in February, its largest drop in seven months. Taking out food and energy costs, the index gained 0.1%.

On Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified on Wednesday about efforts to reform banking regulation, telling Congress the Fed's participation in the oversight of banks improves its ability to carry out its monetary goals.

Crude prices ended higher on Wednesday, 17 March 2010. Prices rose as the dollar stayed steady following yesterday's comments from Federal Open Market Committee regarding keeping interest rates low for quite some period now. OPEC's decision to keep production quota unchanged and weekly inventory report on crude did little to affect prices today.

On Wednesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for April delivery closed at $82.93/barrel (higher by $1.23 or 1.5%). Prices lost 0.4% last week.

In the latest weekly inventory report, the EIA reported today that U.S. crude inventories rose by 1 million barrels in the week ended 12 March. Market had been looking for an increase of 1.9 million barrels.

The EIA also said the week's gasoline supplies fell by 1.7 million barrels and distillate stocks dropped by 1.5 million barrels. Market had expected declines of 1.5 million barrels for gasoline and 1.6 million barrels for distillates.

Advancers beat decliners by a more than a 2-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange, where nearly 5.1 billion shares exchanged hands.

Indian ADRs ended mixed on Wednesday. WNS and Rediff.com were the main losers shedding 4.9% and 2% respectively. ICICI Bank and Dr Reddys gained 2.5% each.