Stocks held their gains following the latest S&P/Case-Shiller housing report and ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee's announcement on the future of its bond-buying program, CNBC writes.

"It's a pivotal time for Fed policy, and it would be advantageous to have someone at the helm who had already gone through the analytical process of getting comfortable with the last five years of policy, rather than coming in with a completely clean slate and trying to potentially reinvent it," said Ian Lyngen, senior Treasury strategist at CRT Capital.