On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average, which rose last Thursday and Friday, added 213.88 points or 1.9 percent to 11,482.90, which put the index higher than its starting point a week ago at the start of what turned out to be a wild week with four consecutive 400-point sessions.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 25.68 points or 2.18 percent to 1,204.49, also higher than last Monday's starting point. The Nasdaq composite index added 47.22 points or 1.88 percent to 2,555.20.
A week ago, the Nasdaq started at 1,532 points.
On Monday, the benchmark 10-year treasury note fell 19/32 to yield 2.326 percent.
On the New York Stock Exchange, 2,838 stocks advanced and 270 declined on a volume of 4.2 billion shares traded.
Asian-Pacific stock exchanges opened the new week's account on an upbeat note and stayed there until the end, allowing investors to breathe easily after enduring unprecedented market swings last week brought on by S&P's U.S. rating downgrade, European debt, France's shaky AAA rating and other factors.
European investors liked what they saw in Asia and pushed their markets higher. All major exchanges -- Germany's Dax, France's CAC 40 and London's FTSE 100 -- were up, the FTSE index adding 30.55 points to 5,350.58. Investors were buoyed ahead of Tuesdays scheduled meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss the debt situation.
The euro rose to $1.4446 from Friday's $1.4249.
In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei-225 Index ushered in the good mood with a respectable opening and closing on the same note with a gain of 123 points, or 1.37 percent, that helped it hurdle over the 9,000 psychological barrier, to 9,086 points.
The Japanese market-booster was a government announcement that the country's quake-tsunami-clobbered economy contracted at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the April-June quarter. Although it was the third straight quarterly contraction, it was much smaller than what had been expected.
The yen remained below the 77 level against the U.S. dollar, as the dollar rose to 76.84 yen from Friday's 76.69 yen.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was greedier, loading up 641 points, or 3.26 percent, to 20,260 points, and the Shanghai Composite Index tacked on 34 points, or 1.3 percent, to 2,627.
Australia's All Ordinaries gained 109 points, or 2.6 percent, to 4,347. Stock prices also made good gains in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia.
Markets were closed in South Korea for Liberation Day and in India for the 64th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule.
No comments:
Post a Comment