Wall Street >>> Industrials Construct Four-Day Rally

US stocks rose for a fourth straight day today on the heels of strong gains in Europe and renewed optimism about recovery from the global recession. Led by jumping industrial stocks, the markets posted modest gains on Wednesday, giving Wall Street its second win streak of four or more days in less than two weeks. The outlook for the US economy has become "cautiously positive" with conditions stabilising from the deep recession, the Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book report today.

Today's Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 49.88 points, or 0.53%, to 9547.22, the Standard & Poor's 500 added 7.98 points, or 0.78%, to 1033.37 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 22.62 points, or 1.11%, to 2060.39.

For the week:
The Dow is up 105.95, or 1.1 percent.
The S&P is up 16.97, or 1.7 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 41.61, or 2.1 percent.
For the year:
The Dow is up 770.83, or 8.8 percent.
The S&P is up 130.12, or 14.4 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 483.36, or 30.7 percent.

The bulls have now recouped all of last week’s losses. This four-day win streak comes less than two weeks after the benchmark index enjoyed eight days of gains, its longest win streak since 2007. The Dow is now up almost 46% from its March 9 low of 6547.

“In the matter of five months we’ve come a long way and therefore maybe it’s not the right time to throw a lot of money in the market. But the party’s not necessarily over,” said a senior dealer.

Hiccup for crude oil & gold

Stocks nearly turned negative late in the day as energy stocks such as Halliburton (HAL 24.89, -0.16, -0.64%) came under pressure after crude oil pared its gains. A day after soaring more than $3, crude settled at $71.31 a barrel, up 21 cents, or 0.79%. Gold backed further away from $1,000 an ounce, settling down $2.60 an ounce, or 0.26%, at $995.30.