S&P rises, doubles its 2009 low

The S&P 500 rose on Wednesday to twice its value from just two years ago, a bounce whose vigour has not been seen since the Great Depression. Stocks were boosted by Dell earnings and deal announcements fuelling hope for more gains, but light volume makes the recent move more tenuous. The market overcame concerns about tensions between Israel and Iran, and indexes slowly climbed back to close near the session's high.
"It seems that there's just a lot of pent-up demand, and the market is very quick to shrug off news that could appear negative," said Angel Mata, managing director of listed equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus in Baltimore. Still, volume struggled to match the year's average of 7.9 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq. About 7.5 billion shares changed hands on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 closed above 1,333.58, double the intraday low hit in early March 2009. On a closing level, the market has risen more than 96 percent since March 9, 2009 -a run not seen in such a short period of time since 1936, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's. The steep advance on relative low volume has sparked many forecasts for a correction.
Dell Inc, the world's No 2 personal computer maker after Hewlett-Packard, flew past Wall Street's profit and margins estimates late on Tuesday, and its shares jumped 11.9 percent to $15.56. HP shares gained 2.1 percent to $48.99. Two Iranian warships planned to sail through the Suez canal en route to Syria on Wednesday, an Israeli official said, calling it a "provocation" by the Islamic Republic.
The pullback following the comments was another opportunity for money on the sidelines to get back into stocks, Mata said. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 61.53 points, or 0.50 percent, to 12,288.17. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 8.31 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,336.32. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 21.21 points, or 0.76 percent, to 2,825.56.
Advancing stocks outnumbered declines on the NYSE by a ratio of 3 to 1. On the Nasdaq, more than nine stocks rose for every five that fell. Crude and basic materials shares again gave the market direction, with the energy sector of the S&P 500 up 1.3 percent and materials up 1.2 percent. Oil services provider Halliburton Co closed at its highest level since July 2008 after a 4.3 percent climb to $47.49.
Further boosting energy shares, Brent crude settled up more than 2 percent near $104 a barrel on concerns over the Israel-Iran tension. French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA agreed to buy Genzyme Corp for $20.1 billion in cash. Genzyme shares rose 1.1 percent to $75.10. In another proposed deal, activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Group offered to acquire Family Dollar Stores Inc for $55 to $60 per share in cash, giving the company an implied value of $7.6 billion. Family Dollar soared 21.1 percent to $53.25. Trian's bid for Family Dollar helped shares of other discount retailers. Dollar Tree Inc was up 3 percent to $52.45 while Dollar General Corp rose 10.1 percent to $29.64.