NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks extended their rally on Wednesday, pushing the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 <.SPX> up more than 3 percent minutes before the Federal Reserve's policy statement.
* Optimism about a plan to remove money-losing assets from banks' books underpinned a broad-based advance, but financial shares were by far the biggest beneficiaries.
* The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> gained more than 2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 3.7 percent.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by James Dalgleish)
