国际英语新闻：U.S. stocks rally on retail data, GE

NEW YORK, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street rallied for the third straight session on Thursday as encouraging news from retail, banks and General Electric (GE) boosted market sentiment.

    Major stock indexes jumped more than 3 percent with financials leading the way up. A policy-setting body for the U.S. accounting industry said Thursday that it would make a long-awaited recommendation to Congress about suspending mark-to-market accounting rules in three weeks.

    Meanwhile, CEO of Bank of America Corp. Kenneth Lewis said Thursday that the biggest U.S. bank posted profit during the first two months of 2009 and is expected to make money for the full year. Bank of America shares rallied 18.66 percent to 5.85 dollars a share.

    The U.S. Commerce Department reported that retail sales dropped0.1 percent in February, which was better than the 0.5 percent drop expected by economists. Investors believe it may signal that consumer spending could be stabilizing.

    Investors basically shrugged off the rising unemployment number. The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 654,000 from the previous week's figure of 639,000, above analysts' expectations.

    On corporate news, GE shares rose 12.72 percent as its lowered credit rating was not as bad as the market had expected. Standard &Poor's adjusted GE's rating from AAA to AA+ because of the company's ailing financial arm, but S&P also indicated that the condition of GE would remain stable.

    The Dow Jones rose 239.66, or 3.46 percent, to 7,170.06. Broader indexes also advance. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 29.38, or 4.07 percent, to 750.74; and the Nasdaq composite index added 54.46, or 3.97 percent, to 1,426.10.