New York - US stocks rallied at day's end Tuesday as energy and technology shares led the way and investors snapped up bargain basement prices. The three major indices closed up despite a drop in confidence among homebuilders that was the lowest since record-keeping began in 1985, Bloomberg financial news service reported.
Hewlett-Packard Co jumped 14 per cent as earnings topped analysts' estimates, while Exxon Mobil Corp climbed more than 4 per cent.
The US rally reflected worldwide share increases rally as London's FTSE 100 index added 1.85 per cent, France's CAC 40 was up 1.11 per cent and Germany's DAX rose 0.49 per cent.
"A number of industries' and sectors' stocks have fallen by huge percentages over the past year and appear to be at pretty attractive valuations based on historical measures," Dean Gulis, part of a group that manages about 2.5 billion dollars for Loomis Sayles & Co in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was quoted as saying.
The Standard & Poor 500 Index is down more than 41 per cent so far this year and was headed for its worst year since 1931, in the midst of the Great Depression. Bloomberg news was projecting an 8.5 per cent drop in full year earnings for companies in the index.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 151.17 points or 1.83 per cent to 8,424.75. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 8.37 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 859.12. The high-tech Nasdaq Composite increased 1.22 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 1,483.27.
The US currency rose to 79.25 euro cents from 79.15 cents on Monday. Against the Japanese currency, the dollar climbed to 97.01 yen from 96.34 yen on Monday.
