Building on what could be one of Wall Street's strongest monthly performances ever, the Dow soared 175 points and the Nasdaq Composite turned positive year-to-date Thursday thanks to big gains from tech stocks and retailers. 

Today's Markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 174.75 points, or 2.25%, to 7924.56, the S&P 500 gained 18.98 points, or 2.33%, to 832.86 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 58.05 points, or 3.80%, to 1587.00. The consumer-friendly FOX 50 added 13.09 points, or 2.15%, to 622.88.

“The feeling on the floor is pretty optimistic. People are sensing that perhaps this thing is turning a little bit,” NYSE trader Bernie McSherry of Cuttone & Co. told FOX Business.

The markets were buoyed by a number of positive stories on Thursday, including better-than-expected results from BestBuy (BBY), upbeat analyst comments on tech stocks like Google (GOOG), and solid demand for a 7-year Treasury auction. At the same time, Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief after a pair of economic reports offered no negative surprises for traders.

It's been a March to remember on Wall Street as a huge rebound in financial stocks, a series of interventions from regulators and glimmers of economic hope have sent the S&P 500 up 13.3% this month alone. That would be the second-best one-month rally ever for the broad index, according Miller Tabak's Dan Greenhaus. The Dow has surged 21% from its 12-year low, its first rally of 20% during the current bear market.

“We’ve really got some upside momentum over the past few weeks. The market seems to be in one of those rally modes where it’s shaking off bad news and buyers are overwhelming the sellers,” said Richard Sparks, senior equities analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude to determine if this is something real or another expected bounce in a continuing downtrend.”

Specifically, Sparks said he is watching to see if the S&P can break through resistance at the 829 level, which is its 80-day moving average. The index ended several pints above that key level on Thursday, a potentially bullish sign.

All but a handful of the 30 components of the Dow traded higher Thursday, led by big gains for General Motors (GM) and American Express (AXP). However, financial stocks failed to join the rally as Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) slumped.

The Nasdaq Composite saw much heavier buying than the broader markets and managed to end in the green for 2009. Tech stocks were lifted by a series of positive headlines, including better-than-expected results from open-source company Red Hat (RHT), an upgrade to "buy" from "hold" for Google (GOOG) and a reiteration for a "buy" rating for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM).

While tech stocks stayed hot the real strength Thursday was provided by retailers like Target (TGT) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), which rallied around Best Buy's (BBY) quarterly results. The electronics retailer released a much better-than-expected adjusted-profit of $1.61 per share for the fourth quarter and said it sees full-year earnings topping estimates, potentially by a significant amount.

Wall Street continues to carefully watch the Treasury market as stocks received a mid-afternoon pop after the government received solid demand for a $24 billion 7-year debt auction. A day ago the markets were spooked by a weak Treasury auction and the U.K's first failed auction since 1995.

Data Fails to Spook Street

Hopes that the recession has begun to stop accelerating were kept alive on Thursday as a pair of economic reports were mostly in-line with expectations.

The government said jobless claims rose by a slightly worse-than-expected 8,000 last week to 652,000. The Labor Department also said continuing claims, which are filed by those on benefits for more than one week, soared by 122,000 to 5.56 million -- a new record.

Wall Street paid little attention to the final revision of the nation's fourth-quarter gross domestic product, which showed the economy shrank at a 6.3% rate. While the final number was slightly higher than the government's most recent estimate, it was well above expectations for a contraction of 6.6%. Either way, fourth-quarter GDP was the worst since 1982.  the 

On the commodity front, crude oil continues to be lifted by the equity markets. Crude erased most of Wednesday's slide by jumping $1.57 per barrel to settle at $54.34. Gold gained $4.20 per ounce to $940.90.

Corporate Movers

General Motors (GM) and Chrysler LLC will likely receive a green light for more loans from the White House's auto task force, The Wall Street Journal reported. The task force is expected to say it sees viable futures for both auto makers, but only if there are sacrifices from management, unions and bondholders, the newspaper reported. GM's shares soared double-digits after the company said 7,500 U.S. factory workers plan to take buyouts.

GameStop (GME) exceeded expectations with a fourth-quarter profit of $1.39 per share as sales soared 21.9% to $3.5 billion. The video game retailer also said it sees earnings beating expectations in the current quarter.

Chrysler LLC said it plans to extend the deadline for its UAW workers to sign off on buyouts and early retirement incentives.

The New York Times Co. (NYT) plans to cut salaries for many employees by 5% for the rest of the year and reportedly laid off 100 workers on Thursday. 

Dr. Pepper Snapple (DPS) beat the Street with an adjusted-profit of 39 cents per share and issued a slightly better-than-expected forecast for 2009 earnings.

ConAgra (CAG) topped estimates by reporting an adjusted-profit of 40 cents per share thanks to a 12% jump in its consumer segment profit. The food maker reaffirmed its full-year earnings forecast.

Agilent Technologies (A) said it plans to slash 2,700 jobs and suspend its stock buyback program until the end of fiscal 2009. The company also warned it sees electronic measurement revenue slumping 30% and semiconductor sales down 50% in 2009.

Global Markets

European markets closed mixed as London's FTSE 100 tumbled 0.64% to 3925.20 but Germany's DAX rallied 0.85% to 4259.37.

In Asia, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rallied 1.84% to 8636.33 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 3.57% to 14108.98. China's Shanghai Composite gained 3.06% to 2361.70.