Stocks end 5-day losing streak

Investors 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 United States.

Those fears about problems festering on both sides of the Atlantic were calmed thanks to a surprising profit from Alcoa and news that borrowing costs in Spain had edged down, a potential sign that investors have more faith, for now anyway, in that country's financial health.

The result was a U-turn on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 129 points in early trading before settling at 12,805.39, up 89.46 points. Tuesday it had lost 213.66 points, the cap to its biggest and longest losing streak this year.

Other U.S. indexes also erased much of the previous day's losses. The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 10.12 points to 1,368.71 after losing 23.61 points the day before. The Nasdaq composite climbed 25.24 points to 3,016.46 following a 55.86-point loss Tuesday.

Alcoa rose more than 6 percent after reporting late Tuesday that it turned a profit in the first three months of the year and handily beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who were predicting a loss.

-- AP