Wall Street comes back

After an early roller-coaster ride today, Wall Street recovered significant ground from yesterday's massive market plunge.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose as much as 358.9 points and fell as much as 138.77 points. The Dow zigzagged for some time early today but rallied to close higher. The Dow rose 288.36 points to 7827.43, a gain of 3.82 percent. The Nasdaq also saw ups and downs early today but moved higher to close up 5.06 percent to 1575.14, a 75.89-point rise.

Yesterday, the Dow plunged 512 points while the Nasdaq plummeted 140.43, the largest single-day point drop in its history.

"There is no positive news coming out yet on the global economy," said Norma Yaeger, president of the investment banking firm Yaeger Capital Markets, adding that neither Russia nor Japan have taken any concrete measures to boost their economies. "Absent of any news that [Japan and Russia take strong measures to help their economies], you are going to get a market that will see-saw back and forth."

Today's rally was helping many technology stocks recover some of their losses from yesterday.

PC manufacturers mostly rebounded, with Apple Computer gaining 9.42 percent to close at 34.13, making up for yesterday's 8.78 percent decline. Dell Computer rose 8.38 percent to 108.39 after falling 15.79 percent yesterday. Gateway fell another 1.45 percent, adding to yesterday's 11.36 percent decline.

The semiconductor sector also closed mostly higher, with Cirrus Logic up 5.15 percent after falling 17.09 percent yesterday. Micron Technology gained 3.85 percent, having fallen 6.67 percent yesterday. Advanced Micro Devices gained 10.58 percent, after yesterday's 14.4 percent decline.

Most Internet stocks also were rallying but not coming close to recouping yesterday's losses.

The Web portals inched their way back up: Excite gained 10.34 percent after falling 28.83 percent yesterday; Lycos rose 23.34 percent after its 27.45 percent fall; Yahoo gained 4.71 percent after yesterday's 16.93 percent decline. Online auctioneer Onsale, which yesterday registered a 21.23 percent decline, made up for the loss by gaining 25.22 percent today.

Online book and music retailer Amazon.com, however, continued to slide, adding to yesterday's 20.91 percent decline. Shares of Amazon closed down another 4.53 percent today.

"I don't see massive selling today like yesterday," Yaeger noted. "I think today, most people will be coming in on short positions and others will try to sell into the market. I don't see much buying, though there of course will be some buying, too."

Global markets were mostly lower following yesterday's 513-point collapse of the Dow, the second-largest point drop in the index's history.

Hong Kong Hang Seng was down nearly 3 percent, or 212.57 points. Despite the falling global markets and the drop in U.S. stocks yesterday, Japan's Nikkei rose nearly 2 percent, or 261.74. The Nikkei is one of the only international markets that is higher today.

"I will say that it is now easier for the market to go down than it is for it to go up," Yaeger added. "You have to have some reason to go up and right now I just don't see any reason for strength coming into the market."