US Markets: Silver lining for Wall Street as shares soar

WALL Street closed out a week to remember last night after the Nasdaq touched a ten-year high while gold and silver broke record levels in the wake of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's pledge to keep pumping cheap money into the US economy.

Silver rose 4 per cent on the week after posting a series of record highs near $50 an ounce. On the month, it has jumped 29 per cent, making it the best investment in April.

Major stock indices including the Nasdaq lagged precious metals but racked up solid weekly and monthly gains, despite worries over the unrest in the Middle East, unsolved public debt problems on both sides of the Atlantic and cost of the natural disasters that ravaged Japan.

"There is a big bias towards the market going up and we've seen this through good news and what we would consider bad news," said Kim Caughey Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh. "The market kind of shrugs it all off and keeps marching higher."

The billions of dollars the US central bank has created to help the economy have succeeded in inflating asset prices and stemming deflation, but has failed to generate robust growth and to slash unemployment.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 47.23 points, or 0.37 per cent, to close at 12,810.54 while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 3.13 points, or 0.23 per cent, to end on 1,363.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index edged up 1.01 points, or 0.04 per cent, to 2,873.54.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares gained 0.3 per cent to end at 1,156.81.