America's economy is bouncing back by Corina Ciubotaru

There are signs that America's economy is strengthening again after the mortgage chaos. Even though the dollar hit an all-time low on Thursday against the euro and other major currencies, stocks are starting to rise due to Countrywide's announcement that it had raised its fund level by $12 billion. Recently, the company borrowed $11.5 billion and sold a $2 billion stake to Bank of America. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 133.23 points, while Standard and Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq went up 12.39 and 8.99, respectively. Individual companies are also doing well on the market: Countrywide went up 14 percent to $18.93, while GM rose 10 percent ($3.09) and Ford gained 5.6 percent. McDonald's also went up to an all-time record of $54.30, adding to the rise of the Dow index, and so have Microsoft, which rose 23 cents, and Boeing, rising 63 cents to $98.95 a share. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies also rose by 2.45 points, or 0.31 percent, to a level of 780.35. The closing price for crude oil was $80.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, for the first time ever above $80. All this rising in stock markets will probably do much to help the economy as a whole, because investors may become relaxed once more and begin buying stock to jumpstart the economy once more. Indicators in other countries also rose; the FTSE 100 in Britain rose 0.91 percent, the DAX in Germany was up 0.84 percent, and France's CAC-40 added 1.05 percent. The Nikkei stock average in Japan also added 0.15 percent.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street;_ylt=Ajcr9Q1lTRBHLrHITehE6pis0NUE

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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