US stocks jumped strongly in the last two hours of trade Monday to finish in the green after a day spent mostly in the loss zone under more clouds from the eurozone crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 85.15 points (0.71 per cent) to 12,068.39.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 9.10 points (0.34 per cent) to 2,695.25, while the broader S&P 500-stock index added 7.89 points (0.63 per cent) to 1,261.12.
Signs of progress on Greece’s nascent unity government committing to the EU-IMF bailout late in the day appeared to give confidence to skittish investors after worries dominated the day.
Stocks made a sharp leap back into positive territory around the time that news came out that Greece’s representative to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 64-year-old former finance minister, Panagiotis Roumeliotis, could be named prime minister by the new government.
With the IMF a key player in Greece’s rescue, Roumeliotis conceivably would be well-placed to ensure the bailout progresses steadily and to restore market trust both in Greece and the eurozone.
In the US economy, the Federal Reserve’s quarterly survey of bank loan officers showed consumer credit rebounded in September by $US7.4 billion ($A7.15 billion), making up much of the August decline – though, it being the beginning of the school year, new student loans accounted for a large part of the surge.
“This is not good news since it means that American households are finding it more and more difficult to finance their children’s studies,” said Gregory Daco of IHS Global Insight.
The data also showed that US banks had sharply cut their exposure to Europe in September.
There was little corporate news to drive trading following last week’s 2.5 per cent loss for the S&P 500.
Hewlett-Packard gave the strongest pull upward on the Dow, gaining 3.4 per cent to $27.88.
Biotech firm Amgen surged 5.9 per cent to $58.43 after announcing a $5 million share buyback program.
Bond prices climbed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.99 per cent from 2.05 per cent Friday, while that on the 30-year Treasury dipped to 3.04 per cent from 3.10 per cent.
Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
