Ben Bernanke on Tuesday fuelled market expectations of a vigorous bounce-back in US growth in the second quarter following very weak first-quarter growth. The Federal Reserve chairman said first-quarter growth had been held down by factors such as an inventory adjustment, weak net exports and a slowdown in defence spending. These seemed likely to be at least partially reversed in the near term. His analysis was reinforced by the latest Institute of Supply Management survey of activity in the service sector, which rose unexpectedly from 56.0 in April to 57.9 in May. The ISM’s May survey of manufacturing, published a...