After 4 weeks of losses, stocks rise; can it last?

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Maybe Warren Buffett can strike a deal to buy the entire stock market, too.

At least the markets plan to open today, but after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced no new program Friday to lift stocks, investors sold lots of them.

That set at least one Wall Street economist to musing whether Buffett might be willing to lend a helping hand instead.

“He could buy the entire S&P,” Mizuho Securities’ Steven Ricchiuto said in a nod to how Buffett’s $5 billion investment in Bank of America Corp. sent its stock soaring just a day before. “But I don’t think even he has enough money to do that.”

But no savior was needed, at least Friday. As Bernanke spoke in Jackson Hole, Wyo., the Dow Jones industrial average fell hard, then reversed course to close at 11,284.54, up 4.3 percent for the week after being down the past four. Investors reinterpreted the lack of any news of a new Fed stimulus to mean the central bank wasn’t so worried about the economy, and maybe they shouldn’t be, either.

Still, investors are down 13 percent in a month, and few expect market turmoil to disappear soon.

The good news for stock investors is that most security exchanges said by Sunday afternoon that they planned to operate normally today, and stocks appear relatively cheap.