Wall Street, Standard & Poor's | featured news

Stocks advanced on Tuesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for its fourth straight gain on increased hopes for central bank stimulus measures ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.

Wall Street stocks plummeted Monday morning on the first-ever downgrade of the United States' credit rating, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging as much as 380 points in the first hour of trading.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.