Stocks gained Friday, rallying in the last 45 minutes of trading after falling for nearly two sessions on continuing concerns about the U.S. economy. The three major indexes fell significantly Thursday after a weak regional manufacturing report added to worries that the economy is heading for a recession. Stocks turned lower at the start of Friday's session but rebounded in the late afternoon, due partly to market rumors that a consortium of banks could announce a plan to bail out troubled bond insurer Ambac Financial as early as next week. Bond insurer MBIA fell 7 percent after a brokerage reduced its earnings estimates. Bond insurers have been in focus recently because of concerns that if they cannot raise enough capital, their credit ratings will be downgraded, making it harder for them to get new business. There were no economic reports released Friday. Light sweet crude for April delivery rose 58 cents to $98.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The March crude futures contract settled at a record high of $100.74 Wednesday after touching a trading high of $101.32. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 98.72, or 0.8 percent, to 12,381.02. However, financial stocks-including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, and American Express-fell. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 10.58, or 0.8 percent, to 1,353.11. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 3.57, or 0.2 percent, to 2,303.35. Shares of telecommunications company Sprint rose 2 percent, but several big technology stocks were lower, including Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple. The New York Stock Exchange composite index rose 87.09 to 9,064.82. The American Stock Exchange composite index rose 19.72 to 2,277.91. And the Russell 2000 index fell 0.85 to 695.43.
