12 Mar 2009

Wall St up for second day

10:01 am on 12 March 2009

Stocks in the United States rose for a second day on Wednesday on expectations that the financial sector is beginning to show some signs of recovery.

JP Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon told CNBC television his bank was profitable in January and February. Similar comments were by Citigroup a day earlier.

Earlier, Mr Dimon said the bank's bond department had just had its two busiest months ever. JPMorgan shares rose 4.6% to $US20.40.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 3.91 points, or 0.06%, to 6,930.40.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1.76 points, or 0.24%, to 721.36. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 13.36 points, or 0.98%, to 1,371.64.

Apple, the maker of MacBook computers and the iPod, was up 4.6% to $US92.68.

Apple introduced a smaller version of its popular iPod Shuffle music player on Wednesday with a new feature that enables the user to see what song is playing.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard rose by 5.8% to $US28.61. Dell rose 2.5% to $US8.98.

Trading was active on the New York Stock Exchange, with about 1.74 billion shares changing hands - above last year's estimated daily average of 1.49 billion.

About 2.23 billion shares were traded on the Nasdaq - below last year's daily average of 2.28 billion.