THE Dow Jones surged yesterday in a rally fuelled by large infusions of cash and an easing of long term interest rates.

The index of blue chip stocks had gained 70.45 points, to 5,607.01 just before 3 p.m. It finally closed at 5,600.15.

The market's circuit breakers were activated after the index rose 50 points to slow down trading.

Speculation that the Fed would ease its monetary policy drove long term interest rates down and continued to impact on the market yesterday.

Blue chip stocks powered ahead as investors again sold technology shares, and put their money to work in some of the nation's largest companies.

"Investors are dumping the tech stocks and putting their money into large capitalisation, generally industrial stocks," said Ms Chris Callies, technical analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman.