Wall St rebounds from 5-day losing streak

Stocks on Wall Street clawed back some of the losses from the previous day's 213-point drop, the biggest this year.

Alcoa kicked off the corporate-earnings season with a better than expected profit while Spanish and Italian government borrowing rates eased.

At the close (8am NZ time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 89.54 points, or 0.7%, to 12,805.47, one day after it dropped 1.7% in its fifth straight decline.

The S&P 500 index was up 075% to 1368.72, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.8% to 3016.46.

Alcoa jumped 7.4% after its quarterly result, which showed revenue as well as profit growth and affirmed its forecast that global aluminium demand would increase 7% in 2012.

Financial and consumer-discretionary stocks, which were hard-hit on Tuesday, recovered strongly.

Bank of America rose 3.6%, Boeing 2.3%, GE 1.9% and JP Morgan Chase 2.3%. All 10 sectors of the S&P 500 were in positive territory.

Other markets: Europe up, Asia down
European stocks rose broadly as Italy's 10-year bond yield fell to 5.541%, from 5.695% on Tuesday, and Spain's 10-year bond yield dropped to 5.876% from 5.992%.

Benoit Coeure, a member of the European Central Bank's executive board, suggested it could turn to its bond-purchase programme again to ease stress in Spain.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index added 0.7% to 254.43, after dropping 2.5% on Tuesday.

Italy’s FTSE MIB index gained 1.6% a day after plunging 5%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 index rose 1.9% after skidding 3%.

The German DAX index climbed 1% to 6674.73, ending a four-day slide, France's CAC-40 gained 0.6% to 3237.69 and the UK's FTSE 100 index firmed 0.7% to 5634.74.

Asian markets ended mostly lower. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropped 0.8% to 9458.74, its seventh consecutive loss, to close at a two-month low.

China's Shanghai Composite bucked the trend, erasing an intraday loss of as much as 1.1% to close up 0.1%.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index fell 0.3% to 17,199.40.

Commodities: Oil up, gold down
Crude-oil prices bounced off multi-week lows after an inventories report was tame compared with previous ones.

Crude for May delivery rose $US2.05, or 2%, to $US103.06 a barrel in New York.

Gold futures edged lower, giving back some of their recent gains after a previous session’s rally and snapping a three-day winning streak.

Gold for June delivery settled 40USc lower at $US1660.30 an ounce in New York.

Currencies: US dollar falls
The US dollar fell against the euro but ticked up against the yen as stocks recovered and Spanish debt yields fell slightly.

The euro was at $US1.3097 from $US1.3081 late on Tuesday.

The dollar was at ¥80.93 compared with ¥80.68, while the euro was at ¥106.02 from ¥105.54.

The pound fetched $US1.5903 from $US1.5863, while the dollar bought 0.9172 Swiss franc from 0.9185 franc.