NEW YORK — The Dow Jones industrial average notched a three-day win streak Monday for the first time in six weeks. A $19 billion corporate buying spree and encouraging economic news from Japan sent the Dow up 214 points and erased its losses from last week.
The return of “Merger Monday” on Wall Street made investors more optimistic about the future. So did a report that Japan’s economy shrank less than feared after the earthquake and tsunami there March 11. That helped ease worries that the U.S. economy may slide into another recession.
The Dow rose 213.88 points, or 1.9 percent, to 11,482.90. It has gained 763 points since Thursday. That’s the best three-day point gain since it rose 927 points in November 2008, during the depths of the financial crisis. The Dow is also up 7.1 percent over the three days, the biggest percentage gain since it rose 9.5 percent the first three days of the bull market in March 2009.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 25.68, or 2.2 percent, to 1,204.49. The Nasdaq composite index rose 47.22, or 1.9 percent, to 2,555.20.
Corporate deals dominated the news, as companies followed a years-long practice of announcing acquisitions on a Monday. The biggest was Google Inc.’s $12.5 billion cash purchase of wireless-phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. It is also the biggest acquisition in Google’s history. No. 2 was its $3.2 billion purchase of DoubleClick in 2008.
Motorola Mobility’s stock jumped 55.8 percent. Google’s stock fell 1.2 percent.
Markets may have stabilized the past three trading days, but financial analysts warned investors not to assume that stocks have fully settled down after last week’s swings. The Dow rose or fell by at least 400 points in four straight days for the first time.
The first downgrade of the U.S. credit rating triggered the volatility. It was exacerbated by concerns that Europe’s debt problems are worsening and that the U.S. economy is weakening.
