Stocks rose Monday, with shares of healthcare companies leading the advance, as U.S. congressional approval of historic healthcare reform legislation removed the uncertainty that has clouded its approval for months. Stocks fell in the first few minutes of trading on renewed questions about Greece's ability to repay its debt. But the market soon erased losses and turned higher as investors purchased biotechnology, healthcare provider, and hospital stocks following the House of Representatives' approval of the healthcare bill late Sunday. The U.S. dollar fell versus the euro and the yen. Light sweet crude oil for April delivery rose 57 cents to $81.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold fell $8.10 to $1,099.50 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 43.91, or 0.4 percent, to 10,785.89, a new 18-month high. Pharmaceutical stocks Merck and Pfizer each gained about 2 percent. Other Dow gainers included McDonald's Hewlett-Packard, DuPont, Caterpillar, and American Express. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 5.91, or 0.5 percent, to 1,165.81, just short of an 18 month high. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 20.99, or 0.9 percent, to 2,395.40, a more than 18-month high. Shares of Google fell slightly after the company said Monday it is redirecting users of its Chinese-language search engine to its Hong Kong search engine, as a means of providing uncensored content.
