Dow Average Rises Record 257 Points
A burst of stock buying pushed the Dow Jones industrial average up a record 257.36 points, erasing in just one day nearly half the decline suffered by the Dow last month.</br></br>The Dow closed at 7879.78 in heavy trading. Though the Dow's gain was a record in point terms, the percentage gain of 3.38 percent was well below the record post-World War II gain of 10.1 percent posted Oct. 21, 1987.</br></br>"There was heavy money flowing into the market today," said Richard Cripps, director of equity marketing at Legg Mason Inc., a Baltimore brokerage firm.</br></br>Today's market surge confounded the fears of bearish investors who worried that the big, multinational companies that make up the Dow average -- which has doubled in the past three years -- were finally due for a significant fall. The average had lost 7.71 percent of its value since its peak on Aug. 6 at 8259.31.</br></br>But analysts said it was too soon to say if today's action signaled the beginning of a new leg up for the bull market. Rather, several analysts expect big-company stocks to hover in a narrow trading range, at least until economists get a better fix on whether Federal Reserve Board policymakers will decide to raise short-term interest rates when they meet on Sept. 30.