By Greg Peel

The Dow fell 53 points or 0.4% while the S&P lost 0.5% to 1365 and the Nasdaq lost 0.7%.

It was one of those upside-down sessions on Wall Street last night ? the sort of thing we've often experienced since the GFC ? in which good news is bad.

From a US economic standpoint, all the news was positive. The second revision of the December quarter GDP result saw an increase to 3.0% growth from the earlier 2.8% estimate. The Chicago PMI accelerated to a rapid 64.0 in February from 60.2 In January. And the Fed's Beige Book indicated the US economy was growing at a "modest to moderate" pace. For many months the commentary has suggested only "modest", but last month there were two and this month there were five Fed regions exhibiting "moderate" growth.

The news was all a bit redundant however, given earlier in the day Fed chairman Ben Bernanke had made a regular testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. Bernanke suggested the US economy was currently sending out "mixed signals", such that while slow improvement in the labour market was promising there is yet to be a matching increase in final demand. Maintaining monetary stimulus for now was warranted, Bernanke suggested, even if the unemployment rate fell and the oil price put pressure on inflation.

Hang on a second.