The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 38.44 at 6,346.77. The Dow opened higher and climbed steadily all day in quiet, orderly trading, a reverse of the past several days of high volatility.
Advancers outnumbered decliners by a 5-to-3 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 1,601 up, 957 down and 805 unchanged. NYSE volume totaled 500.4 million shares vs. 519.84 million yesterday.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 5.50 to 731.54, and the NYSE's composite index rose 2.40 to 385.17.
The Nasdaq composite rose 19.03 to 1,285.35, and the American Stock Exchange index was up 4.65 at 574.96.
Stocks rose despite a sluggish bond market, where the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond was down 15/32 point, yielding 6.69 percent.
The Dow industrials were led higher by IBM as technology stocks continued to reverse a sell-off on Friday and Monday.
No national economic reports gave direction to the trading. However, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said its area survey of economists indicated the economy should grow 2.3 percent in the last quarter of 1996 and drop to 2.0 percent in the first two quarters of 1997.
That data confirmed that the economy is growing slowly and reinforced the Federal Reserve's decision yesterday to hold short-term interest rates steady.