Stocks rallied on Wall Street yesterday as Mr Kenneth Starr's charges against President Clinton were released to the public for the first time.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 179.96 points - or by 2.4 per cent - to 7,795.50 despite opening the day with a 96-point slide.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 3.5 per cent to lead the broad market advance as technology shares drew a boost from some encouraging business updates by Intel and Oracle.
The rally, which came after a two-day downturn that had wiped out Tuesday's record gain of 380 points, trimmed the Dow's loss for 1998 to 1 per cent. The market's weak opening followed another rocky day overseas, where Tokyo's Nikkei Stock Average plunged 5.1 per cent amid news that Japan's worst recession since 1955 deepened in the second quarter.
Despite the quick recovery from the early drop, however, the mood on Wall Street remained sombre before the scheduled afternoon release of the report on the Lewinsky affair.
The Standard and Poor's 500 rose 28.87 to 1,009.06, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 28.87 to 1,009.06.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2-to-1 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, with 2,064 up, 1,000 down and 462 unchanged.
NYSE volume totalled 817.70 million shares, down from 875.77 million in the previous session.
The NYSE composite index rose 12.23 to 500.00, and the American Stock Exchange composite index rose 6.98 to 613.21.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 8.65 to 353.61.
