Question about the_excerpt tag

Hi guys,

My home page displays the latest posts. I use the_excerpt tag to give readers a taste of what the posts are about. Rather than fill the excerpt box in on the edit post screen i just leave it blank so WordPress automatically outputs the first 55 words of each post.

My question is this…

How can i get wordpress to adopt the styling used throughout the post in the excerpt section. For example, i often make certain words bold in the post, yet the_excerpt tag ignores these when shown on the home page.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.