Dow up 49.69

NEW YORK -- Stocks rose for a fourth straight session today, with a sudden flurry of mergers adding to the optimism created by last week's cut in Federal Reserve interest rates.

The Dow Jones industrial average finished 49.69 points higher at 8,466.45 after retreating from a 98-point gain that put the blue-chip barometer above 8,500 for the first time since before the late August sell-off. In less than two weeks now, the Dow has jumped 1,000 points from the bottom of a steep slide that threatened to push the blue-chip index below the summer low of 7,400.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 5.97 to 1,062.39, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index jumped 27.78 to 1,648.73.

Advancers outnumbered decliners by a 7-to-4 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 2,009 up, 1,133 down and 385 unchanged.

NYSE volume totaled 714.79 million shares, down from 1.020 billion on Friday. The NYSE composite index rose 3.26 to 525.50, and the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 1.22 to 605.72.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies, which two weeks ago was down as much as 37 percent from April's peak, rose 2.79 percent, gaining 9.58 to 352.45.

The 30-year Treasury bond rose 1 basis point to 4.99 percent.

J.P. Morgan & Co. reported a 60 percent drop in third-quarter earnings due to "extreme volatility" in world markets, but shares rose $3.371/2 to $92.871/2 amid relief that the damage wasn't worse in Russia and Asia.

Tokyo's Nikkei stock average rose 2.2 percent following late Friday's passage of a bill which will make available up to $525 billion to cash-strapped banks.