The stock market boost came after a previous drop of 500 points A late share-buying spree has seen the Dow Jones index in New York close up more than 10%. It came after European shares had also closed higher, regaining some of the ground lost in previous sessions. The Dow closed ahead 889.35 points, or 10.88% at 9065.12. The tech-based Nasdaq also closed up 9.53%, and the broader S&P 500 was ahead 10.79%. Analysts said investors were buying in anticipation that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates on Wednesday. Some believe the US central bank will cut its key Fed fund rate by half a point to 1%. Trading volumes increase Others have put the increase down to shares having fallen too low, with the opinion that stock prices had finally touched bottom. Shares trading on the day was up 17% on the average over the past three months. The Dow Jones experienced its second biggest one-day points gain ever, after it had dropped 500 points on each of the two previous trading days. Volatility has been the watchword over the past few weeks - out of 20 trading days there have been only two where the Dow did not close up or down by triple digits. At close on Tuesday the Nasdaq was ahead 143.57 points at 1,649.47 points and the S&P 500 was ahead 91.59 points to 940.51. The late surge came amid a strong rebound in global markets, but the leap at the end of the US session took market participants by surprise. "There does not appear to be a specific news item to account for the surge," analysts at Briefing.com said. Consumer confidence In fact the market was able to overlook a report earlier in the day which indicated that US consumer confidence was at its lowest since records began in 1967, a sign that share pricing may already have factored in any downbeat economic data. "There is nothing fundamental that came out today or yesterday that would take it up or down. We're all groping for something meaningful to talk about," said Bob Andres, chief investment strategist at Portfolio Management Consultants. Shares of aircraft maker Boeing were up 15% to $48.91 after the manufacturer reached a provisional deal with its largest union to end a strike and end losses put at $100m (£64m) a day. On a day of no losers on the Dow, other major winners were AIG - recently rescued by the Fed - which was up 35.66% to $1.83, Alcoa - up 19.25%, General Motors - up 14.68%, and Verizon which was ahead 14.63% Volkswagen boost The New York surge came amid a strong rebound in global markets. Earlier, in London, the FTSE closed up 73.79 points, or 1.9%, at 3,926.38 while in Paris the Cac 40 gained 47.57 points, or 1.6%, to end at 3,114.92. Frankfurt's Dax rose 485.81 points, or 11.3%, to 4,823.45. Earlier, Asian markets finished up after a late rally. In Germany, the Dax was mainly boosted by Volkswagen, whose shares have soared since Porsche announced on Sunday that it had upped its VW stake. This has caused investors to scramble for the remaining VW shares in the market. As a result, VW - Europe's largest carmaker - was the clear winner on the German index, finishing the day up 81.7% at 945 euros. Asian rallies Earlier in Japan, the Nikkei 225 dropped below 7,000 points for the first time in 26 years, but later recovered to close up 459.02 points or 6.4% at 7,621.92. Japanese authorities said that to stabilise markets, they would bring forward a ban on traders selling shares that they did not already own. As was seen later in the US, other Asian economies also had late rallies and clawed back some of their earlier losses. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up 14.4%, which was its biggest daily percentage gain for 11 years. It followed a 12.7% decline on Monday. Even after Tuesday's gains, the Nikkei and Hang Seng have fallen more than 30% since the beginning of the month. South Korea's Kospi index initially dropped 2.6%, but later rose to finish 5% up on the day.



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