Talk of key accounting rule suspension lifts sentiment

Traders said investor sentiment was buoyed by talk that Washington would suspend an accounting requirement on the recognition of losses that has resulted in billions of write-downs for banks.

"The notion that you can suspend this mark-to-market provision, which was established after Enron, as way of halting the slide in the value of financials is at the fundamental core of putting on the brakes," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Equity Markets in Jersey City, New Jersey.