Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Wall Street scores 2012 best day, as European shares hit 33-week peak

The US stock market posted its best day this year, with Tuesday's late spark coming from JPMorgan Chase & Co after the bank announced it had boosted its dividend.

Stocks gained throughout the session, helped by stronger-than-expected retail sales and benign comments from the US Federal Reserve, which said recent strains on financial markets were easing.

The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 217.97 points, or 1.68 percent, to 13,177.68 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 24.87 points, or 1.81 percent, to 1,395.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 56.22 points, or 1.88 percent, to 3,039.88.

European shares scaled to a 33-week high as encouraging data from Germany and the United States signalled a recovery in the global economy, boosting appetite for riskier assets such as equities that had potential to advance further this month.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares ended up 1.7 percent at 1,095.34 points, the highest close since late July. The index, which fell 10.7 percent last year, is up 9.4 percent this year. Miners rose 2.6 percent, while the travel and leisure sector gained 2.3 percent.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei share average eked out modest gains despite giving up an earlier increase to above the key 10,000 mark after the Bank of Japan held off on easing monetary policy following a two-day policy meeting.

The Nikkei was up 0.1 percent at 9,899.08 after trading around 9,995 before the announcement from the BOJ, which surprised markets last month by boosting its asset-buying scheme by 10 trillion yen ($121.62 billion) and setting a 1 percent inflation goal.

The benchmark Nikkei climbed above 10,000 earlier in the session as investors looked for signs for further easing from the central bank. The broader Topix ended flat at 845.33.