DOW rises moderately on unemployment report

A report suggesting that unemployment levels might be stabilising helped reassure Wall Street today and sent stocks moderately higher, although the gains were limited by news of a sluggish gross domestic product.

Analysts said much of the advance was also a bounceback from yesterday’s sharp decline after the Federal Reserve voted to cut interest rates by a quarter-percentage point. Since the reduction was widely expected, traders were now making up for yesterday’s overreaction.