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The Federal Reserve is buying $85 billion of bonds a month to hold down long-term interest rates and bolster the economy. The central bank's stimulus has been a crucial support for a stock market rally that began more than four years ago. Investors also got more insight into the Fed's thinking Wednesday after the central bank published minutes from its September meeting Wednesday. Nearly every member of the Federal Reserve thought the central bank should see more economic data before slowing its bond purchases. But worries about whether a delay would confuse markets made the decision a close call. Many expected policy maker to start cutting stimulus. In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.67 percent from 2.63 percent. Much of the concern about a potential default by the government bond has been concentrated in short-term government securities known as T-bills. Portfolio managers at Fidelity Investments have been selling their short-term government debt holdings over the last couple of weeks. The nation's largest manager of money market mutual funds said Wednesday that it no longer holds any U.S. government debt that comes due around the time the nation could hit its borrowing limit. In commodities trading, trading the price of oil dropped $1.88, or 1.8 percent, to $101.61 a barrel. Gold slumped $17.40, or 1.3 percent, to $1,307.20 an ounce. The dollar rose against the euro and Japanese yen. Among other stocks making big moves: Jos. A. Bank Clothiers rose $2.67, or 6.4 percent, to $44.33 after saying it wants to buy rival retailer Men's Wearhouse for $2.3 billion. Men's Wearhouse soared $9.79, or 28 percent, to $45.03. Alcoa rose 16 cents, or 2 percent, to $8.10 after the aluminum maker posted a slim third-quarter profit late Wednesday, reversing a year-ago loss.
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