Stocks Up After Big Run-up

NEW YORK — Wall Street closed out a volatile week and month with a comparatively mild performance Friday, closing mostly higher on encouraging words from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The major indexes ended the week with gains, but still posted big declines for November.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 150 points in the session after Bernanke gave investors more reason to believe further interest rate cuts could be on the way. But the market gave back a big chunk of the gains, a fizzle that was perhaps to be expected after stocks’ huge gains Tuesday and Wednesday. Nervousness about tech stocks, the result of weak results from Dell Inc., pulled the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index down.
“Although the U.S. is in the eye of the credit storm, we’ve seen the Fed cut rates and we’ve heard from Bernanke that they’re prepared to do so again if necessary,” said Robert Jukes, global equity strategist at Collins Stewart in London.
Evidence of a more reticent consumer came Thursday in a Commerce Department report that showed consumer spending rising a modest 0.2 percent in October, the slowest pace in four months. The department said core personal consumption expenditures have risen 1.9 percent year-over-year.