New York — Wall Street ended a horrific two weeks with a show of strength Friday, boosting the Dow Jones industrials by 115 points and extending Thursday's late rebound from a nearly 400-point drop.
Technology stocks, now seen as some of the best buys in the market, led the advance.
But while the Dow's rise was encouraging, analysts said it was unlikely the stock market's slide had indeed hit bottom Thursday.
"Let's not mistake this for a beginning of a bull market move," said Charles White, portfolio manager at Avatar Associates. "It's a Friday with no economic reports and little news in the marketplace. There's not too much to be made of what's going on today."
The Dow rose 115.30 to close at 9,504.78, wiping out the remaining damage from Thursday's slide, which saw the average fall 380 points before finishing 97 points lower.
The Dow, which until last week was resilient to the massive selloffs that devastated the Nasdaq and technology stocks during the past several months, has been stricken by fears the weakening economy is taking a heavy toll in other industries.
But the overall market did look better Friday.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 30.98 to 1,928.68, although it was down nearly 62 percent from its own high of 5,048.62 reached March 10, 2000. For the week, the Nasdaq advanced 37.77, or 2 percent.
Wall Street's broadest measure, the Standard & Poor's 500, rose 22.25 to 1,139.83. The S&P 500 has lost more than a quarter of its value since peaking at 1,527.46 a year ago.
High-tech issues, beaten down so badly until recently, were the market leaders Friday, but it was likely that their low prices made them look more attractive not any shift in market sentiment about a sector still seen as highly risky.
IBM helped lead the Dow's advance, rising $4.58 per share to $93.68. Microsoft, also a Dow stock was up $2.56 at $56.56.
Cell phone maker Nokia rose $1.37 to $26.37 after announcing plans to buy back up to $50 million worth of stock.
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