国际英语新闻：Wall Street advances on JPMorgan's new offer, unexpected housing report

NEW YORK, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street advanced Monday on JPMorgan's new offer for Bear Stearns and a stronger-than-expected housing report.

    JPMorgan lifted its offer for Bear Stearns to 10 U.S. dollars per share from 2 dollars. The revised plan is aimed at soothing Bear Stearns shareholders upset over JPMorgan's earlier offer.

    The National Association of Realtors said that sales of existing homes rose by 2.9 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units. It marked the first sales increase since last July, but even with the gain, sales were still 23.8 percent below where they were a year ago.

    Wall Street, which had been expecting another decline in sales, was encouraged by the February increase.

    The Dow Jones average rose 187.32, or 1.52 percent, to 12,548.64. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 20.37, or 1.53 percent, to 1,349.88, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 68.64, or 3.04 percent, to 2,326.75.

A U.S. two dollar bill is taped to the revolving door leading to the Bear Stearns global headquarters in New York March 17, 2008. JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Sunday it would buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for just 2 U.S. dollars a share in an all-stock deal that values the U.S. investment bank at the centre of the credit crisis at about 236 million U.S. dollars.