Late surge erases earlier losses on Wall Street

NEW YORK (AP) -- A late afternoon surge capped another wild day on Wall Street Tuesday and prevented the S&P 500 stock index from entering a bear market. Stocks jumped on reports that European officials were working to prop up the region's struggling banks.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 200 points with 40 minutes of trading left. It closed up 153.

Indexes opened sharply lower as traders worried that the government of Greece could be closer to defaulting on its debt. They pared their losses at midday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a Congressional panel that the central bank could take more steps to stimulate the economy, then slumped again in the afternoon.

At 3:25 p.m., the market began rising quickly after news outlets reported that European financial ministers were working on a way to coordinate their efforts to support European banks, as they did during the financial crisis in 2008. Worries that European and perhaps U.S. banks could get hammered by a Greek default have been a major concern among investors.

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