NEW YORK — It was another day of big swings in the Dow Jones industrial average, but at least Monday the index ended with a modest gain.
The Dow soared 200 points in the morning, an encouraging start after four weeks of losses. By noon, that gain shriveled to 2 points, then came a rise of another 100 in the afternoon. At the end of the day, the Dow closed up 37 points.
Compared with the even wilder fluctuations over the past two weeks, Monday’s trading looked relatively calm. The Dow has gained or lost at least 200 points on eight days in August, including a 420-point plunge Thursday. A flare-up of Europe’s debt crisis and fears of a new U.S. recession have shaken investors, taking the Dow down 15 percent in one month.
Hewlett-Packard Co. rose 3.6 percent, the most of the 30 large companies in the Dow Jones industrial average. HP sank 20 percent Friday after saying it planned to sell its PC business and stop selling other products.
The Dow rose 37 points, or 0.3 percent, to close at 10,854.65. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.29 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 1,123.82. It had been up as many as 22 points. The Nasdaq rose 3.54 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,345.38.
