Stocks in pendulum-like week head higher

U.S. stocks climbed early Thursday after three days of volatile trading by investors concerned a double-dip recession is asserting itself. The Dow Jones industrial average, dropped 5.6 percent Monday, rose 4 percent on Tuesday and lost 4.6 percent Wednesday. After two months of disappointing economic data, investor concerns reached a crescendo last Friday, when credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded U.S. credit for the first time ever from its lofty AAA rating to AA+. On Thursday in early afternoon trading, the seesawing continued. The DJIA added 354.04 points or 3.3 percent to 11,073.98 in early afternoon trading. The broader S&P 500 index gained 43.10 points, 3.85 percent, to 1,163.86. The Nasdaq composite index added 92.92 or 3.9 percent to 2,417397. The benchmark 10-year treasury note fell 23/32 to yield 2.271 percent. The euro rose to $1.421 from Wednesday's $1.4177. Against the yen, the dollar fell to 76.86 yen from Wednesday's 76.87 yen. European stocks opened higher Thursday but showed signs of tiring later in the morning amid the global turmoil as Asian markets closed mixed. As in Asia, concerns among the European investors centered over the Eurozone debt and the U.S. economy. European stock prices on major exchanges opened strong Thursday, but by late morning only London's FTSE and Germany's DAX were in the positive territory. In Asia, most exchanges couldn't fully recover from their Thursday opening hit and waved red at close, as investors heard nothing encouraging during the day. Thursday's performance, brought on largely by the mayhem the previous day on the New York markets and fears that France could be next on the rating downgrade block after the United States' downgrade to AA+ from AAA by S&P, also put full stop to the Asian market's one-day rally Wednesday. Tokyo's Nikkei-225 index, the early forecaster of the Asian market mood, showed only enough strength to offset some of the 2.2 percent opening plunge to close 57 points down, or 0.6 percent, to 8,982 points. The yen's growing strength remained a concern as that would further hit Japan's exports. Kyodo News reported the government was set to revise downward its forecast for the world's third largest economy's growth this fiscal year to around 0.5 percent. The Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index mimicked the Nikkei, cutting its morning's 2 percent deficit to close 1 percent down to 19,595 points. But China's Shanghai Composite Index advanced 1.3 percent to end the day at 2,581 points. China's trade surplus in July soared to $31.5 billion, easing fears that the current climate could hurt the country's exports. Taiwan's Taiex slipped 0.2 percent to 7,719.09, while Australia's Ordinaries remained largely unchanged at 4,140.8. South Korea's Kospi was another exception, closing up 0.6 percent to 1,817 points after being down a hefty 4 percent. The country's central bank left the key seven-day repo rate unchanged at 3.25 percent, giving more consideration to the global conditions than rising inflation at home. Both of India's bourses closed lower, with the 30-stock Sensex shedding 71 points, or 0.42 percent, to 17,059 points and the broader Nifty yielding 23 points, or 0.44 percent, to 5,138 points. In London, the FTSE 100 index also rebounded, adding 155.67 points, 3.11 percent, to 5,162.83. CNN reported U.S. stocks may rally Thursday, encouraged by a slightly improved forecast from Cisco Systems, whose shares rose sharply in after-hours trading. However, investors still remained concerned about a double-dip recession in the United States and the European debt crisis. "We have hadvolatile markets in the past that have headed in one directio, but this time around no one eems to know what is going to happen," Andrew Robinson of SaxCapital Markets told the BBC."On Tuesday, you had the Dow Jones up by 4 percent, if had yoasked me then, I would have sid it looks like we have bottomed out. But you wake up this morning to find that it is down by the same magnitude again."