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Stocks are surging on Wall Street, breaking a four-day losing streak, after the government reported a sharp pickup in hiring by U.S. employers in July. The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 244 points to 13,123 shortly before noon. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 28 points to 1,393, and the Nasdaq composite added 62 points to 2,972.

A commerce site called Limited Run, in announcing that it was deleting its Facebook page, claimed that 80 percent of its ad-clicks on Facebook came from "bots" or automated accounts, and only a fifth from genuine users.

Faced with Facebook, Starbucks and Angela Merkel, the market chose to focus on Merkel. For a second day, the U.S. stock market powered higher after European leaders, including German chancellor Merkel, pledged to protect the union of 17 countries that use the euro. The Dow Jones industrial average blew past 13,000, a key psychological marker that it hadn't hit since early May.

Markets and the euro rose after Mario Draghi reportedly told a conference in London that the central bank would “do whatever it takes to preserve” the currency.

Stocks rallied Wednesday, with the S&P 500 touching its highest level since early May, as corporate profits from bellwethers like Intel and Honeywell defied the market's worst fears.

Soccer powerhouse Manchester United is expected to launch its IPO in New York as early as next week, for pricing in early August, after earlier attempts in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.

Stocks rose Wednesday, as investors watched Fed Chief Bernanke deliver the semi-annual "Monetary Policy Report to the Congress" before the House Financial Services Committee.

How is your portfolio doing since the 2008 financial crisis? If you’re like most Americans, it’s probably healed some. After all, stocks are up about 13 percent since October 2008. Bonds are up about 30 percent. “Winnie-the-Pooh” is doing a bit better. A 1926 first-edition copy of the fabled children’s classic can fetch nearly four times what it did in 2008 — a return of almost 300 percent.

News that European leaders will take action aimed at quelling the debt crisis that has been plaguing the continent for more than two years unleashed a global rally that sent U.S. markets roaring more than 2% higher. However, Wall Street still capped the second quarter in the red.

Stocks of hospital companies rose sharply and insurance companies fell Thursday after the Supreme Court upheld a requirement that almost all Americans carry health insurance. The stock of Hospital Corp. of America, the largest private hospital chain in the United States, rose a little more than 7 percent. Quest Diagnostics, which runs laboratories, rose almost 3 percent.