Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Materials lead Wall Street higher but turmoil remains

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 67.39 points, or 0.56 percent, to 12,086.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 3.77 points, or 0.29 percent, to 1,297.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 14.43 points, or 0.54 percent, to 2,698.30

European shares ended higher helped by strong mining stocks, and analysts said markets should rise even higher once visibility on issues such as the Libyan conflict and Japanese nuclear situation improves.

The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares ended 0.5 percent higher at 1,112.36 points after falling to 1,102.35.

Japanese shares fell, giving up nearly half of the previous day's 4-percent gain, while government bonds edged higher as investors paused to assess the economic damage from this month's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.

After foreign buyers returned to the markets yesterday, investors focused again on the costs of the March 11 disaster, which is expected to easily exceed the 10 trillion yen from the Kobe earthquake in 1995.

The Nikkei average .N225 fell as much as 2 percent at one point before trimming losses to close down 1.7 percent at 9,449.47 points, breaking a key support level at 9,500.