The Dow Jones industrial average moved up 65.55 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 8,280.23, after losing 307 points in the last session.

The broader market indicators also closed higher. The Nasdaq composite index rose 21.23 points, or 1.6 percent, to close at 1,391.01. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 10.51 points, or 1.2 percent, to close at 874.74.

On Tuesday, US and British forces slowly edged closer to Baghdad. US Air Force General Richard Myers and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the war might be a tough fight with likely difficult days ahead. But Bush predicted that the coalition forces would prevail in the war with Iraq.

Wall Street investors also found encouragement from a pair of mixed economic data. The Conference Board reported that the Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 62.5 from a revised 64.8 in February, but still beating analysts' previous expectations. The National Association of Realtors said that existing home sales fell 4.3 percent from January, but remaining the fourth best month on record.

Airborne rose by US$1.82 to US$19.91 after Deutsche Post's DHL shipping service agreed to buy the third-largest US package delivery service for US$1.05 billion. JetBlue edged up 66 cents to US$28.61 after Bear Stearns raised the rating of it's stocks. However, Union Pacific lost 46 cents to US$56.20 after cutting its first-quarter earning outlook.

The NYSE composite index rose 60.43 points to 4,862.01 points, the American Stock Exchange index gained 3.33 points to 820.78 points and the Russell 200 index of smaller company stocks advanced 4.54 points to 371.79 points.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners about 3 to 1 on the NYSE, with 2,356 issues up, 907 issues down and 163 issues unchanged.

The NYSE trading volume came at 1.33 billion shares, compared with 1.29 billion traded last session.

(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2003)