Dow climbs 123 at close

US investors anxious to get back into the stock market pounced on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s bullish economic report today, sending stocks soaring and propelling the Dow Jones industrial average up 123 points to its highest level in more than two-and-a-half years.

Greenspan, in testimony before a House committee, gave a better-than-expected assessment of inflation and the overall economy and reiterated the Fed’s current stance that it could remain patient before eventually raising interest rates.