NEW YORK: Wall Street rallied Monday with the S&P set to reverse a three-day sell-off, as a weak US dollar and better-than-expected home sales data encouraged investors.
The National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned US homes rose at a faster-than-expected pace to the highest in more than 2-1/2 years. The Dow Jones US Home Construction index gained 0.7 per cent.
"The rise in home sales was primarily driven by the credit for first-time home buyers. But still, given the unemployment rate and the number of foreclosures, you have to be very pleased about the numbers. It's stellar," said Tim Speiss, leader of Personal Wealth Advisors group at Eisner LLP in New York.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 145.03 points, or 1.41 per cent, at 10,463.19 levels; the Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 17.62 points, or 1.61 per cent, at 1,109.00 levels; whereas the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 33.53 points or 1.56 per cent to hit 2,179.57 levels.
The US dollar index slid 0.7 per cent on comments by St Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard that the Fed should extend its mortgage-related assets purchase programme to give policy-makers more flexibility.
Energy shares got a boost as January crude futures gained 2.3 per cent to $79.22, while Dow component Chevron Corp swelled by 2.9 per cent to $79.
On the Nasdaq, News Corp rose 1.6 per cent at $12.17 after sources said Microsoft Corp has talked about a deal in which News would get paid to take its news websites off Google Inc.
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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