NEW YORK -- Technology stocks led the Nasdaq composite index to a solid, broad advance Thursday as investors sought bargains and rewarded companies with strong prospects for future growth.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 98.34 to close at 4,267.56. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 80.35, to 11,114.27.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by an 8-to-5 margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume totaled 999.37 million shares.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 1.2 percent. Germany's DAX index rose 1.6 percent, Britain's FT-SE 100 was up 1.1 percent, and France's CAC-40 was up 3.1 percent.
Executives admit fixing prices
WASHINGTON -- Four former executives of European vitamin companies agreed Thursday to plead guilty, pay fines and serve time in U.S. prisons for scheming to fix the prices of an alphabet soup of vitamins throughout the world during the 1990s, the Justice Department said.
In four criminal cases filed in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the department charged that three former BASF AG executives and one former F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. executive conspired with others to raise and fix the prices of vitamins sold in the United States and abroad.
Auto workers strike to protest sale
SEOUL, South Korea -- Workers from South Korea's four major carmakers began a weeklong strike Thursday to protest the proposed sale of troubled Daewoo Motor Co. to a foreign buyer.
General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. are front-runners after DaimlerChrysler of Germany and South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. withdrew from the race.
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