US stocks post mostly gains
Wall Street closed out a volatile week and month with a comparatively mild performance tonight, closing mostly higher on encouraging words from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
The Dow Jones industrial average had risen 150 points earlier in the session after Bernanke gave investors more reason to believe further interest rate cuts could be on the way.
But the market gave back a big chunk of the gains, a fizzle that was perhaps to be expected after stocks’ huge gains Tuesday and Wednesday. Nervousness about tech stocks, the result of weak results from Dell, pulled the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index down.
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow rose 59.99, or 0.45%, to 13,371.72. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index rose 11.42, or 0.78%, to 1,481.14, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 7.17, or 0.27%, to 2,660.96.
