From Staff Reports
It was another wild day on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average followed up Tuesday's manic trading with an equally surprising rebound yesterday (Wednesday).
After dropping more than 325 points in morning trading, the 30-stock market bellwether reversed course and posted a gain of nearly 300 points for the day - a swing of more than 625 points.
During its journey, the Dow traded as low as 11,644.81. It ended the day at 12,270.17, up 298.98 points.
The U.S. financial sector led the charge with its biggest advance in five years. The Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co., (JPM) - the biggest U.S. lenders by market value - rallied after Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC) advised buying shares of large banks.
Bank of America added $3.18, or 8.5%, to close at $40.57, its largest gain in eight years. Dow components JPMorgan [up almost 12% for the day] and Citigroup Inc. (C) (up 8%) helped to boost the average higher.
This sector reversal of fortune was aided by the announcement that New York State insurance regulators met with U.S. banks to discuss raising new capital for bond insurers.
Talks in New York with the unnamed banks are part of Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo's effort to stabilize the bond guarantors and to bolster the market's financial condition, agency spokesman Andrew Mais said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Both the broader S&P 500 Index and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite Index were also down in early trading, only to recover and post gains for the day. The S&P was up 28.10 (2.14%) to close at 1,338.60, while the NASDAQ climbed 24.14 (1.05%) to close at 2,316.41.
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