Bernanke Acknowledges Fed Policy Failure; Stocks Rally

Stocks rallied Monday based on comments that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke made at the National Association for Business Economics spring conference. Long-term interest rates however went up.

The takeaway that got buried was that the Fed Chair admitted that the economy remained weak and there has been no significant recovery yet. In relation to job gains, Bernanke specifically stated, 'we have not seen that in a persuasive way yet.' He followed up by saying that without much stronger GDP growth, the unemployment rate was unlikely to fall much further.