Bourse

Home page

Bourse

US and European indices rise

01 April 2009 08:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev - APA-Economics. Wall Street resumed its advance Tuesday as investors bought technology and financial stocks to beef up their portfolios on the last day of the quarter.
The Dow Jones industrial average, which added more than 180 points in afternoon trading, was on track for its biggest monthly gain in nearly nine years.
The financial sector is likely to get another dose of good news later this week. The Financial Accounting Standards Board is widely expected to ease accounting rules that require companies to list their assets at current market values.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 180.56, or 2.4 percent, to 7,702.58. The Standard & Poorâ€™s 500 index gained 19.98, or 2.5 percent, to 807.51, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 43.74, or 2.9 percent, to 1,545.54.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 12.69, or 3.1 percent, to 428.66.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 880.7 million shares.
nvestors have been worried about insurance stocks since their investment portfolios have suffered so much with the market downturn, which has brought stocks down by about half from their peak in October 2007.
Lincoln rose 70 cents to $7.11, after tumbling 38 percent on Monday. Other insurers that rose included MetLife Inc., which added $1.62, or 7.5 percent, to $23.12, and Prudential Financial Inc., which rose $1.27, or 7.1 percent, to $19.27.
Big gainers in the financial industry included Bank of America, which rose 64 cents, or 10.6 percent, to $6.67; Citigroup, which added 21 cents, or 9.1 percent, to $2.52; and Fifth Third Bancorp, which gained 45 cents, or 18.2 percent, to $2.93.
GM shares dropped 38 cents, or 14 percent, to $2.32, after plunging 25 percent on Monday.
Crude oil reversed an early slide, gaining 98 cents to $49.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The dollar was lower against other major currencies. Gold prices rose.
Overseas, Japanâ€™s Nikkei stock average fell 1.5 percent. Britainâ€™s FTSE 100 rose 4.3 percent, Germanyâ€™s DAX index rose 2.4 percent, and Franceâ€™s CAC-40 rose 3.2 percent.