U.S. stocks closed higher Wednesday, as first quarter earnings season kicked off and the Federal Reserve (Fed) sounded a dovish tone. In U.S. economic news, the Fed released minutes from its March meeting. The minutes indicated that the central bank's members were mostly united in getting rid of the employment threshold as a gauge for timing interest rate increases, and investors seemed to take that as a sign that rates would remain low for some time. At the news conference following that meeting last month, Fed Chief Janet Yellen briefly spooked investors when she stated that the bank's stimulus program would most likely be finished by the fall and that a rate hike could come as soon as early 2015. The dollar gained ground against the euro and the pound, but lost ground versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for May delivery added $1.04 to $103.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures dropped $3.20 to $1,305.90 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 181.04, or 1.11 percent, to 16,437.18. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index moved up 20.22, or 1.09 percent, to 1,872.18. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 70.91, or 1.72 percent, to 4,183.90.
