NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks started off December on a strong note, helped by improving economic data from Japan and Europe as well as hopes the European Central Bank will expand its stimulus program. Trading remained relatively quiet ahead of the release later this week of the U.S. government's monthly jobs survey and a Federal Reserve meeting later this month.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 168.43 points, or 1 percent, to 17,888.35. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 22.22 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,102.63 and the Nasdaq composite rose 47.64 points, or 0.9 percent, to 5,156.31.
Financial stocks were among the biggest gainers, helped by the prospect of higher interest rates. Banks are more profitable when interest rates rise because they can charge more to lend. JPMorgan Chase rose 93 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $67.61. Goldman Sachs rose $3.05, or 1.6 percent, to $193.07 and Bank of America rose 38 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $17.81.
Investors are keyed into both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve this month. Policy decisions from both central banks will be important in determining the fate of the market in the last month of 2015.
"As it has been most of this year, central banks are still running the show," said Samantha Azzarello, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds.
The ECB will decide Thursday whether to expand its economic stimulus program, which functions similarly to the bond-buying program the Fed used after the financial crisis to keep long-term interest rates low. ECB head Mario Draghi has signaled the bank could expand its bond-buying program or even cut interest rates further.
Investors are so certain that Draghi will expand his program that data out Tuesday showing the unemployment rate in the 19-country eurozone edged down to a four-year low of 10.7 percent in October is not seen as likely to derail those measures.