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Wall Street extends rally after record gain

NEW YORK - Wall Street shares kept momentum Tuesday from a historic rally as investors grew confident that a massive US government bank rescue plan would finally ease a global financial crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average leapt 382.23 points (4.07 percent) to 9,769.84 in the first five minutes a day after the biggest single-day point gain for blue chips and best percentage rally in 75 years.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq surged 46.40 points (2.52 percent) to 1,890.65 and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 index vaulted 19.04 points (4.00 percent) to 494.55.

Market action came as the US government pushed forward a massive rescue for the ailing banking system with a plan to inject up to 250 billion dollars in capital to banks and offer new guarantees to help restore credit flows.

"Last week's selling panic has been supplanted for the time being with a buying panic, with participants fearing they are missing out on the big rally," said Patrick O'Hare at Briefing.com.

"As noted yesterday, we expect the rally effort to find resistance at some point as many anxious investors use it as an opportunity to calm their nerves by selling at higher prices that have lessened this year's sizable losses."