Stock market gains as Greece worries ebb

Investors largely put aside their concerns about the Greek financial crisis yesterday and focused instead on value. Stocks rose broadly after the market shook off its longest weekly losing streak in nearly a decade.

The downturn brought the Standard & Poor's 500 index close to its average level over the prior 200 days. So long as the index doesn't sink far below that level, many technical traders see it as a sign to start buying stocks again. The S&P is now 6 percent below the 2011 high it reached on April 29.

"In the short term, stocks have been oversold, and you're going to get some sort of bounce, whether justified or not, just for technical reasons," said Paul Simon, chief investment officer for Tactical Allocation Group, which has $1.5 billion in assets under advisement.

The S&P 500 index rose 6.86 points, 0.54 percent, to close at 1,278.36. The Dow Jones industrial average added 76.02 points, or 0.63 percent, to 12,080.38. The Nasdaq composite gained 13.18, or 0.50 percent, to 2,629.66.

Health care companies like Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. rose 1 percent, the largest gain among the 10 industry groups that make up the S&P 500 index. Financial companies like Morgan Stanley, which lost 1.9 percent, were the only group to lose ground.

Signs that the European financial crisis may be contained helped ease investors' concerns. European Union officials in Luxembourg said that the EU would take steps to prevent Greece's debt problems from affecting other struggling countries like Ireland and Portugal.