9:19 pm - Wall Street stocks to rally at opening

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street was poised to rally once more at Wednesday's opening ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's scheduled addressbefore Congress. The stock market on Wednesday may benefit again from an improvement insentiment that drove a massive rally in the prior session when investors cheeredaggressive recapitalization efforts underway at major banks. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Switzerland's UBS AG issued new shares tohelp bolster their balance sheets. Investors at the start of the second quarter seem more willing to look pasttight credit markets and the troubles of financial firms that plagued the firstquarter. Bernanke will testify about the health of the economy to Congress. As usual,investors are hoping he will drop some hints as to whether the central bankplans to continue its aggressive interest rate cutting program. However, they also will want to know how weak he considers the economy tobe. Numerous economists have said they believe a recession is under way.However, Fed officials generally are cautious when describing the economy. Arecession consists of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction and canonly be declared in hindsight. In addition, investors will be curious to see if Bernanke offers anyinsights into the Fed's role in aiding JP Morgan Chase & Co.'s purchase of BearStearns Cos. and whether he believes the credit crisis is nearing a conclusion.The Fed chairman is set to begin speaking as the market opens at 9:30 a.m.Eastern time. Government data on factory orders in February is due at 10 a.m. Eastern.According to Thomson/IFR, there should be an unchanged level of orders inFebruary, following a January decline of 2.5 percent. The futures contract for the Dow Jones industrial average rose 50 points, or0.4 percent, to 12,677. Futures contracts for the Standard & Poor's 500 gained5.20 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,375.80 and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 9.8 points,or 0.6 percent to 1,867.5. Wall Street began the second quarter Tuesday with a boisterous rally asinvestors rushed back into stocks, optimistic that the worst of the creditcrisis has passed and that the economy is faring better than expected. All themajor indexes were up more than 3 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei index closed up 4.21 percent. There were gains on Europeanbourses too, with London's FTSE 100 rising 0.08 percent, Frankfurt's DAXadvancing 0.31 percent and Paris' CAC 40 gaining 0.23 percent. Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be