Dow up 113
in year-end rally

NEW YORK -- Stocks shot higher today, restoring hopes for a year-end rally as many traders returned from an extended Christmas break.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 113.10 points to 7,792.41, pushing this year's gain back above 20 percent with just two sessions to go.

Advancers beat decliners by more than a 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 2,146 up, 863 down and 463 unchanged.

NYSE volume totaled 441.24 million shares, more than the combined tallies from Wednesday's and Friday's abbreviated sessions.

Broader measures also rose sharply as investors searched for bargains, betting that a January flood of new investment capital will create enough demand to put Asia's economic troubles on the market's back burner for a while.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock list rose 16.90 to 953.36, and the NYSE composite gained 7.89 to 501.49. The Nasdaq composite rose 26.07 to 1,537.45, and the American Stock Exchange composite climbed 5.52 to 669.29. The Russell 2000 index rose 5.17 to 426.66.

Treasury bond prices,meanwhile, were lower. The price of the Treasury's main 30-year bond was down 11/32 point, or $3.44 per $1,000 in face value, by late afternoon. Its yield, which moves in the opposite direction from price, rose to 5.92 percent from 5.90 percent on Friday.

There were no major developments on the domestic scene to steer the market, but there were some encouraging signs in South Korea's fiscal crisis.

The South Korean parliament passed a financial reform package, hoping to shore up confidence among international lenders. Meanwhile, in New York, officials from major banks of the United States, Japan and Europe were meeting to discuss extending new loans and rolling over some of South Korea's short-term debts.

On overseas markets, Tokyo's Nikkei stock average slipped 0.2 percent, Frankfurt's DAX index rose 1.8 percent and London's FT-SE 100 rose 2.0 percent.