Stocks climbed yesterday as investors, heartened by reports of better-than-expected economic growth and consumer sentiment, snatched up battered shares and bid farewell to a brutal quarter on Wall Street. Stocks plunged last week - the first week of trading after the September 11th attacks on the US - as Wall Street worried that corporate profits would fall even more than already forecast. But indexes have clawed back from their lows as investors bet prices are cheap, given the Federal Reserve's eight interest-rate cuts this year.

The Dow Jones gained 7.4 per cent for the week, its best weekly performance since 1984. But the blue-chip Dow average lost 15.76 per cent during the third quarter - its worst performance since December 1987. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 30.9 per cent during the quarter, its second-worst quarterly performance ever. Stocks have risen four out of five days in the week that immediately followed the biggest weekly drop in the Dow average since the Great Depression as investors responded to the attacks on New York's World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.