NEW YORK: US stocks pushed higher on Monday with technology stocks heavily sold last week showing a rebound, helped by Janet Yellen's assurance the Federal Reserve will continue to support the economy.
Around 11:30 am (1530 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 87.76 points (0.54 percent) to 16,410.82.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 10.82 (0.58 percent) at 1,868.44.
Meanwhile, the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 39.29 (0.95 percent) to 4,195.04, as investors pushed back into shares that fell out of favor last week amid worries of both a bubble in the sector and tensions over Ukraine.
Federal Reserve Chair Yellen gave the markets support in a speech in which she underlined that unemployment was still a big challenge for the economy and that the Fed will maintain its extraordinary measures until the jobless rate falls a lot more.
"The recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans, and it also looks that way in some economic statistics," she said.
Biotech stocks that were big losers all last week rebounded, with Gilead Sciences up 2.2 percent while rival Biogen Idec added 3.8 percent, after losing 7.7 percent last week. Amgen gained 2.6 percent.
Other tech gainers: Facebook (+1.8 percent); King Digital (+2.5 percent), Yahoo (+1.0 percent) and Amazon (+0.2 percent).
Microsoft continued to push higher on the success of its Word app for Apple devices, rising 1.8 percent.
General Motors, whose problems continued to mount ahead of Congressional hearings over its recent recalls, lost 1.2 percent.
Tesla, the electric luxury car maker, lost 2.3 percent as it announced a fix for its battery fire problem.
Bond prices slipped. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 2.75 percent from 2.72 percent Friday, while the 30-year rose to 3.57 percent from 3.55 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.
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