Wall Street stocks shot up on Thursday as investors hungry for bargains overcame the recent wave of fear that has driven selling over the last two weeks.
The Dow Jones Index rose 423 points, or almost 4% percent, to close at 11,143.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 112 points, or 4.7%, to finish the trading day at 2493.
It is the second time the market has bounced back in a week that one market commentator likened to a bungee jump.
"We've fallen off of a small bridge, the bungee cord bounced us up, and oscillations will diminish, but we're still bouncing around," strategist Fred Dickson told Reuters news agency.
Good results from computer networking giant Cisco and a slight dip in weekly US jobless claims helped sentiment
Reuters reports that the market's worries about the spread of the European debt crisis were also somewhat alleviated after news of a meeting between France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel set for Tuesday next week.
