NEW YORK (AFP) - Wall Street's broad-market index jumped to a new three-year high as a strong report on US retail sales and solid earnings from Dell helped keep the stock rally on track.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 69.17 points (0.66 percent) to 10,539.01, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 24.07 points (1.17 percent) to 2,085.34, as both indexes hit their highest levels since April.
The broad-market Standard and Poor's 500 index advanced 10.69 points (0.91 percent) to 1,184.17, the highest level since before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"The technical strength of the market is starting to build momentum which is keeping sellers on the defensive and making buyers a little more aggressive going into the end of the year," said Joe Liro, equity strategist at Stone and McCarthy Research Associates.
Helping set a positive backdrop, New York's main crude oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, fell 10 cents to 47.32 dollars a barrel. It is now down 14.2 percent since October 17.
Meanwhile the government said retail sales in October advanced 0.2 percent, or 0.9 percent excluding autos.
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index rose to a three-month high of 95.5 from 91.7 in October, bolstering hopes for a pickup in spending that will lift the economy.
RBC Dain Rauscher analyst Bob Dickey said the major indexes "have all broken out above their resistance levels" suggesting a more optimistic outlook on Wall Street after being stuck in a range for most of 2004.
"These levels have been prominent barriers for most of this year, which makes the breakouts quite significant. The technical projections for the Dow and the Nasdaq are now to 11,000 and 2,250, respectively, over the next few months ... The markets appear to be responding to the typical year-end bullish sentiment, and we expect that the current rally will last for at least the next two months."
European shares closed slightly higher after a tepid opening on Wall Street, a stonger euro and profit-taking took the steam out of a nascent rally.
London's FTSE 100 index rose 0.36 percent to 4,793.90, Frankfurt's DAX gained 0.30 percent to 4,143.35, while in Paris the CAC 40 nudged up 0.03 percent to 3,835.11.
Among active shares on Wall Street, Dell soared 3.19 dollars, or 8.6 percent, to 40.44 dollars, after reporting third-quarter profit rose 25 percent compared with a year ago as it boosted sales of its PCs, laptops and other gear by 18 percent.
Alcoa was a top performing blue chip, rising 81 cents, or 2.4 percent, to 34.27 dollars.
Coca-Cola fizzed out, however, dropping 17 cents, or 0.42 percent, to 40.79 a day after lowering key sales targets and warning about profits.
Bonds managed to recoup some of their recent losses.
The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond dipped to 4.200 percent from 4.254 percent Wednesday and that on the 30-year bond to 4.912 percent against 4.976 percent. The bond market was closed Thursday for Veterans Day.
11/12/2004 - 22:32 GMT - AFP