A broad commodities and basic-materials rally combined with a report that showed housing sales sharply accelerated last month, helped push stocks to new 2009 highs on Friday.

Today’s Markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 155.91 points, or 1.67%, to 9505.96, the Standard & Poor's 500 advanced 18.76 points, or 1.86%, to 1026.13 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 31.68 points, or 1.59%, to 2020.90. The consumer-friendly FOX 50 added 12.52 points, or 1.7%, to 747.35.

Wall Street was fueled by a big rally in the crude oil and the metals markets, with oil striking a fresh 2009 high earlier in the session, after a positive German and French manufacturing survey helped lift the euro higher versus the dollar. The dollar fell to a fresh year low against the Swiss franc as well.

Crude futures closed up 92 cents to $73.83 a barrel while gold futures were up $13 to $954.70 a troy ounce. Copper futures jumped more than 3%.

The rally in commodities-related helped lift the basic-materials companies of the likes of Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), Alcoa (AA) and Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), which all closed moderately higher. Earlier in the week, those names took a hit after the metal markets sold off primarily in China. 

Stocks added to their gains after the National Association of Realtors said that July existing home sales jumped 7.2% to 5.24 million annualized units, the largest one-month gain in 10 years. 

The economic report was much better than the 5 million annualized units that Wall Street economists had expected, according to data provided by Thomson Reuters. 

Wall Street also responded positively to speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in Jackson Hole, Wyo. where the central banker said the U.S. economy is "leveling out" and that "the prospects for a return to growth in the near term appear good."

It was a more upbeat assessment of the nation's economy by the Fed Chief  in light of rebounding equity prices and recently positive economic data. 

Company News

Dow Jones & Co., which is owned by FOX Business’s parent company News Corp (NWS), is shopping for  potential buyers for the company's stock-market indexing business, The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday, which could result in a name change for the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average index.

The U.S. Department of Justice gave antitrust approval for Oracle Systems (ORCL) to complete its $7 billion purchase of Java developer Sun Microsystems (JAVA).

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said that government officials acted appropriate when working with Goldman Sachs (GS) during the height of the financial crisis last year. Geithner said the rescue efforts by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department was to stop the collapse of the financial system, not to benefit Goldman.

Morgan Stanley (MS) is looking to hire as many as 400 traders and sales people as the economy recovers and markets rebound, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The areas Morgan is looking to hire in are fixed-income trading, emerging markets and foreign exchange, with hiring being spaced evenly on both trading and sales.

Toyota Motor Co. (TM) will expand and add production at its Huntsville, Ala. plant to manufacture four-cylinder engines. The move will add 240 new employees at the plant, and provide $147 million in investment into the factory, which currently builds six- and eight-cylinder engines. The new four-cylinder engines will be used in Toyota's Camry and RAV4 models.

Shares of jam and jelly company J.M. Smucker Co. (SJM) jumped Friday after the company weighed in with a better than expected adjusted profit of 92 cents a share, beating Wall Street analysts’ estimates, and said its full-year earnings will likely be at the higher end of the company’s previous estimate. 

Ann Taylor (ANN) reported a $18 million loss, or 32 cents a share, compared with a profit of $29.3 million, or 50 cents a share, from a year ago. This quarter's results included $23.6 million in restructuring charges. Excluding one-time items, Ann Taylor said it earned 6 cents a share down from 53 cents a share, beating the 3 cents expected by Wall Street analysts. 

Global Markets

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 jumped 1.98% to 4850.89 while Paris' CAC 40 gained 3.45% to 3615.81 and Germany's DAX rose 2.68% to 5462.74.

Asian markets closed mixed. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.4% to 10238.20 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.64% to 20199.02. China's Shanghai Composite rose 1.69% to 2960.77.