Closing Market Report
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Stocks gain sharply as oil prices tumble
By Tim Paradis
Associated Press
NEW YORK » Wall Street capped a volatile week with sharp gains yesterday as oil prices tumbled and after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said inflation pressures are likely to moderate. The Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 200 points.
Speculation that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. could be sold helped buoy the financial sector and the overall market. Analysts warned this week that the investment bank could book large write-downs for bad debt. But reports yesterday that Korea Development Bank is considering buying the company sent investors rushing for the stock. Lehman rose 69 cents, or 5 percent, to $14.41 but finished well off its highs of the session.
Investors also appeared cheered by an inflation forecast from Bernanke who said at the Kansas City Fed's annual economic symposium that inflation pressures should moderate this year amid tepid economic growth. But he also added that the inflation forecast remains "highly uncertain."
The health of the financial sector and rising inflation are two of the market's greatest concerns. Although Bernanke refrained from making predictions about inflation, the market was mollified when light, sweet crude plunged $6.59 to settle at $114.59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after surging by more than $5 a barrel on Thursday.
The Dow rose 197.85,or 1.73 percent, to 11,628.06, near its highs of the session.
Broader stock indicators also rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 14.48, or 1.13 percent, to 1,292.20, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 34.33, or 1.44 percent, to 2,414.71.
The run-up yesterday left stocks with mostly modest losses for the week that again saw a series of triple-digit moves in the Dow. The Dow is down 0.27 percent, the S&P 500 is off 0.46 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq is down 1.54 percent.
Bond prices pulled back as investors rushed from the safety of government debt to stocks. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.87 percent from 3.83 percent late Wednesday.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to a light 888.6 million shares compared with 912 million shares traded Thursday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 12.35, or 1.70 percent, to 737.60.
The dollar rose against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.
While most sectors gained ground yesterday, some materials companies pulled back as commodity prices fell. United States Steel Corp. fell $5.44, or 3.9 percent, to $133.76, while miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. declined $3.06, or 3.3 percent, to $90.60.
In corporate news, Gap Inc. rose 87 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $19.88 after reporting late Thursday that profits in the most recent quarter rose 51 percent from a year earlier, thanks to tight inventory and cost control.