US stocks staged a robust recovery on Friday from four days of heavy losses as investors put aside security fears triggered by the attacks in Madrid and bought heavyweight technology stocks.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 2 percent, but all the major stock indexes suffered the biggest weekly declines since September.
"Now we're seeing some buying, some short covering. The Nasdaq is acting better than the Dow because it had more of a sell-off than the other indexes," Todd Leone, head of listed trading, S.G. Cowen, said.
Investors bought technology stocks, including International Business Machines Corp and Dell Inc..
For the week the Nasdaq lost 3.07 percent, the Dow ended down 3.35 percent and the S&P 500 ended off 3.14 percent.
The Dow industrials closed up 111.70 points, or 1.10 percent, at 10,240.08. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index ended up 13.79 points, or 1.25 percent, at 1,120.57, while the Nasdaq Composite finished up 40.84 points, or 2.10 percent, at 1,984.73.
The demand for stocks outweighed concerns generated by the deadly attacks in Madrid on Thursday, which killed about 200 and wounded 1,430. Fears of more violence, including talk of an attack on the United States, set off a triple-digit fall in the Dow in the previous session.
Dell finished the session at $33.05, up $1.06, after J.P. Morgan raised its rating on the second-largest supplier of personal computers to "overweight" from "neutral".
Shares of Aetna Inc. climbed to a 4-1/2 year high after the health insurer raised its outlook for first-quarter and full-year profit and forecast membership gains.
The stock closed up $4.77, or 6 percent, at $84.42.
The tech rally was led by Cisco Systems Inc, the world's largest maker of equipment that directs traffic on the Internet. Cisco shares closed up 79 cents, or 4 percent, at $23.13 and were the second most actively traded on Nasdaq. IBM helped pull the Dow higher.
The stock ended up $2.09, or 2.3 percent, at $93.30.
Volume was active, with about 1.39 billion shares trading hands on the New York Stock Exchange, and roughly 1.68 billion shares traded on the Nasdaq. Advancers trounced decliners by a ratio of 8 to 3 on the NYSE, and by about 3 to 1 on the Nasdaq.
Some of the buying came from short sellers, or speculators who sold borrowed stock in hopes of buying it back later at a lower price. When stocks rose they were forced to cover their short positions by buying shares.
Tobacco company Altria Group Inc. fell after Prudential Securities cut its rating to "neutral" from "overweight," sending its shares down 4 percent to $54.31.
Investors were largely unmoved by a slight dip in the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey, even though economists expected a slight rise.
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