US stocks rallied, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to its biggest gain in almost six weeks, as UN weapons inspectors pressed for more time to work in Iraq.
"A lot of traders feared bombing would start tomorrow, and there's no smoking gun here," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Trust & Savings Bank, which manages US$40 billion in Chicago.
Computer-related shares rose after Dell Computer Corp reported higher profits and forecast rising sales. They contributed one-quarter of the gain in the S&P 500, which climbed 17.52 to 834.89. The index's 2.1 percent advance was the largest since Jan. 6.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 158.93, or 2.1 percent, to 7,908.80. The NASDAQ Composite Index added 32.73, or 2.6 percent, to 1,310.17. Stocks had fallen the three previous days as the US government warned citizens to prepare for possible new terrorist attacks and linked Iraq to the al-Qaeda terror network.
For the week, the S&P 500 and Dow gained 0.6 percent, while the NASDAQ advanced 2.2 percent. All three rose for the first week in five.
Stocks climbed as Hans Blix, the UN's chief inspector, told the Security Council that his staff wants more private interviews with Iraqi scientists and flights by U-2 spy planes next week.
Inspectors are seeking to determine whether Iraq has complied with UN disarmament demands.
France, Russia and China, which have vetoes in the Security Council, called for stepped-up inspections rather than the use of force.
"If Iraq is allowing U-2 flights next week, that suggests a more conciliatory tone, and will put off the combat for at least a few more days," Harris Bank's Ablin said. He's waiting on further developments before making changes in his portfolios.
* The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 17.52 to 834.89.
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 158.93, or 2.1 percent, to 7,908.80.
* The NASDAQ Composite Index added 32.73, or 2.6 percent, to 1,310.17.
More than three stocks rose for every two that fell on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ Stock Market. Some 1.36 billion shares traded on the Big Board, 1.3 percent more than the three-month daily average. More than 1.31 billion shares changed hands on the NASDAQ.
Exchanges are closed Monday for Presidents Day.
Dell had its biggest gain in nine months, surging US$2.52, or 11 percent, to US$25.77. The world's second-biggest personal-computer maker said fourth-quarter profit jumped 32 percent and sales will rise to US$9.5 billion this quarter.
"Dell came in with good numbers; that's very good for the market," said David Memmott, head of trading at Morgan Stanley, the world's largest securities firm by market value. "But this whole terrorist thing and Iraq is 95 percent of what the market's looking at right now."
Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell's larger rival, rose 84 cents to US$17.79. Intel Corp, the world's largest semiconductor maker, rose US$0.62 to US$16.15.
Nvidia Corp rallied US$2.17 to US$12.04. The maker of computer-graphics chips used in Microsoft Corp's Xbox video-game machine earned US$0.30 a share in the fourth quarter, topping the US$0.06 average forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, as it settled a pricing dispute with the world's largest software maker.
Microsoft rose US$1.31 to US$48.30.
Analog Devices Inc climbed US$3.02 to US$26.90. The world's fourth-biggest maker of signal-processing chips, used in cell phones and electronics, said fiscal first-quarter profit more than doubled. Excluding some costs, the company earned 17 cents a share, beating analysts' average forecast by 1 cent.
RSS