Economy

CLOSING BELL: June 29: DJIA: 12,880.09 | UP 277.83 | +2.20%

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Wall Street ends weak quarter with a bang

Chuck Mikolajczak, Reuters – Stocks surged on Friday to close out a sour quarter on a high note as investors cheered an agreement by European leaders to stabilize the region’s banks, a pact that helped remove some of the uncertainty that has plagued markets.

The broad rally was the S&P 500′s best day since December 20 and helped the benchmark index trim its quarterly loss to 3.3 percent.

The decline marked the S&P 500′s first down quarter in the last three after tumultuous Greek elections and concerns about the solvency of Spanish banks roiled financial markets around the world.

“You are going to be see a nice summer rally out of this. Think of where this market would be if it hadn’t been for the euro crisis,” said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.

“The market is now looking at least six to eight months forward on what is the economic landscape going to look like in an improving European growth environment.”

Euro-zone leaders agreed that countries would be able to recapitalize banks directly without increasing a country’s budget deficit.

Read the complete article at Reuters [here]