Wall St rallies; S&P 500 snaps five-day losing streak

"Europe was strong and especially the banks in Europe, and that appeared to have some positive carryover effect on sentiment towards banking and other financial stocks here in the U.S.," said John Carey, portfolio manager at Pioneer Investment Management in Boston, which has about $220 billion in assets under management. Also helping boost sentiment, he said, was that U.S. consumer spending regained some strength in January. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 313.66 points, or 2 percent,