US stocks: Dow breaks six-day losing streak

The Dow Jones Industrial Average today snapped a six-day losing streak – its longest since August – as bargain hunters swooped on stocks that looked cheap and investors took comfort from a fall in US jobless claims and signs of stabilization in Europe.

According to MarketWatch, the Dow closed up 19.98 points, or 0.2 percent, at 12,855.04, after rising nearly 100 points earlier in the day. Nineteen of its 30 components advanced.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 3.41 points to close at 1,357.99, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq index slipped 1.07 points to 2,933.64.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 also rose 0.5 per cent to 1,019.05, with almost all European indices closing higher, according to the Financial Times.

"You are seeing traders and investors come into some of these very oversold sectors and buying on the dips. Then suddenly, the people who are scared decide to start selling into it," Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont, told Reuters.

Investor sentiment was boosted after US economic data showed applications for unemployment benefits dropped 1,000 to 367,000 in the week ending May 5, Bloomberg reported.

Risk appetite also increased on news that Spain would take over Bankia, the country’s fourth-largest bank, and Greek socialists were attempting to form a coalition to break the political impasse in the debt ridden-country.

“Europe's problems are by no means being solved. But the feeling that there is some support there probably helps sentiment a little bit,” Ed Hyland, a global investment specialist with J.P. Morgan Private Bank, told the Associated Press.