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To quell the latest financial crisis, the Federal Reserve smashed interest rates to the floor by buying bonds with money it effectively prints. Since 2008 assets on the Fed’s balance sheet, including those bonds, have tripled, to $3 trillion. (Hey, people needed encouragement, and low rates are encouraging.) The mixed results: Entrepreneurs and homeowners got some relief, while savers got whacked along with the value of the U.S. dollar. Starving for yield, investors piled into stocks, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its all-time high, absent inflation.

It took 5½ years. Surging stock prices and steady home-price increases have finally allowed Americans to regain the $16 trillion in wealth they lost to the Great Recession.

U.S. retailers are posting moderate sales for February, dealing with mixed signals like payroll-tax increases and later income-tax refunds that were countered by a rousing stock market and better housing reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average, an index of 30 U.S. stocks and a gauge of financial markets, closed at a record high of 14,253 on Tuesday. The Dow has more than doubled since hitting a 12-year low in March 2009....

Despite everything, the stock market is back at a record high. The Dow Jones industrial average, which measures the performance of 30 blue-chip companies, rose more than 140 points in afternoon trading on Tuesday, surpassing its previous record close of 14,164.53, which it achieved nearly five and a half years ago, as well as its record intraday high, set around the same time, of 14,198.10.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett says stock prices have gotten a boost from low interest rates caused by the Federal Reserve's stimulus efforts.

Stocks had their worst drop in more than three months as the prospect of political paralysis in Italy raised the specter of Europe's debt crisis flaring up again. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 216.40 points, or 1.6 percent, to 13,784.17, its biggest drop since Nov. 7. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 27.75 points, or 1.8 percent, to 1,487.85, dropping below 1,500 for the first time in three weeks. The Nasdaq composite dropped 45.57 points, or 1.4 percent, to 3,116.25.

Talk of more merger and acquisitions is sending stock prices slightly higher in early trading, setting the market up to continue a seven-week rally.

The Dow and S&P 500 gained to finish at five-year highs in choppy trading Tuesday, ahead of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address later this evening.

Stocks are edging higher in early trading on Wall Street after a report showed that the U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply in December.