Investors on Wednesday all but forgot the previous day's burdens and sent stocks soaring. It was a stark turnaround from the day before, when they'd pushed the market into a free-fall on worries about European debt and corporate earnings in the U.S.
Stocks are closing sharply lower after investors delivered their verdict on disappointing job growth in March. It's only the second four-day losing streak of the year for the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500.
The Dow Jones industrial average on Tuesday finally reclaimed the ground it held before the carnage of the Great Recession -- bailouts, bank failures, layoffs by the million and a stock market panic that cut retirement savings in half.
A two-point gain was enough to push the S&P 500 index to its highest level since June 2008, three months the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the darkest days of the financial crisis.