NEW YORK — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday what investors wanted to hear - that the economy is on the verge of recovery - and they responded with a rally that sent the major indexes to new highs for the year.
The Dow Jones industrials shot up nearly 156 points Friday, closing above 9,500 for the first time since Nov. 4, and all the big indexes finished with gains of more than 1.5 percent.
Meanwhile, Treasury pricestumbled, pushing yields sharply higher as investors no longer felt they needed the safety of government debt.
The stock market's gains were broad, reaching across all industries, but the biggest jumps came from energy, industrial and material stocks, as oil and commodities prices soared. Bank stocks also rose sharply.
The Dow rose 155.91, or 1.7 percent, to 9,505.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 18.76, or 1.9 percent, to 1,026.13, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 31.68, or 1.6 percent, to 2,020.90.
About four stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to nearly 6 billion shares.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, jumped Friday to 3.56 percent, from 3.44 percent late Thursday.
Oil prices touched their highest point of the year on hopes that energy demand will soon pick up. After briefly nearing $75, light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 98 cents to settle at $73.89 a barrel on the New YorkMercantile Exchange.
The dollar, which, like Treasurys, is considered a safe-haven asset, tumbled against other major currencies.
Though trading has been erratic this week, the market has managed to eke out three days of moderate gains after a big drop in stocks on Monday.
"The prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good," Bernanke said at an annual Fed conference in Wyoming. He did warn, however, that lending is not back tonormal and that the difficulty consumers and businesses are having obtaining loans will be a challenge.
A bigger-than-expected jump in home sales also gave stocks a boost and helped send bonds lower.
The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes rose 7.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.24 million in July, from a pace of 4.89 million in June.
It was the fourth straight monthly increase and the highest level of sales since August 2007. The rise in sales came amid a sharp decline in home prices.
The day's news jump-started a listless market that has been marked by choppy trading this week amid mixed economic news and light summer volume.
Though Bernanke's positive assessment on the economy was encouraging, analysts said, the market's challenges, including rising unemployment and sluggish consumer spending, are certainly far from over. The market appears to be on an upward trajectory, but analysts cautioned that stocks will likely bounce around through at least the rest of the summer.
"The news isn't going to be all good from here on out," said Jordan Smyth, managing director at Edgemoor Investment Advisors in Bethesda, Md.
Next week, investors will get two key reports on consumer confidence that, if worse than expected, could easily upset the market's gains.
"We're not past the volatile stages of the market," said Lowell Pratt, president of The Burney Co., an equity-management firm.
Investors have been closely watching for signs that consumers, like the market, are becoming more confident about the economy's prospects for recovery and in turn will increase their spending. Consumer spending accounts for more than twothirds of economic activity.
But as long as job losses continue to mount, it will be difficult for consumers to feel comfortable about spending freely.
"Consumer spending normally is the driver of recoveries at the beginning," said Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Global Investors. "That's not happening this time.
"At some point, the market is going to ask to see more than just mixed data," he said. "It's going to want to see some real jobs produced and an end to job losses and some validation that the consumer isn't going to stay in a slump."
In other trading, the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 12.83, or 2.3 percent, to 581.51.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.4 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 gained 2.0 percent, Germany's DAX index jumped 2.9 percent, and France's CAC-40 soared 3.2 percent.
Business, Pages 27, 28 on 08/22/2009