NEW YORK, Nov 29: US stocks ended higher on Friday in tandem with Europe and Asia despite market unease over the deadly attacks in Mumbai.

In a shortened session after Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day holiday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 102.43 points (1.17 per cent) to close at 8,820.04, the fifth consecutive gain for blue chips.

Inspired by a sense that the credit crisis may be easing, the Nasdaq composite also managed a rise of 3.47 points (0.23 per cent) to 1,535.57 and the Standard & Poor’s 500 broad-market index advanced 8.56 points (0.96 per cent) to 896.24.

In London the FTSE 100 index finished 1.46 per cent in positive territory at 4,288.01 points, ending one of its best weekly showings ever.

The index was up 13.41 per cent from its close last Friday, a performance not seen since its creation in the 1980s.

In Paris the CAC 40 added 0.38 per cent on Friday to finish at 3,262.68, capping its strongest weekly showing -- 13.24 per cent -- since its creation in 1987.

In Frankfurt the Dax was less robust, rising just 0.09 per cent on Friday to to 4,669.44 points.

With no economic news driving Wall Street, stocks extended a rally Friday that pushed up the market by more than 10 per cent in the past few sessions.

Andrew Busch at BMO Capital Markets said the Islamist militant attack in Mumbai that killed 130 people this week underscored the fragile geopolitical situation and initially pressured the market.

The markets appear to be saying that they are worried, but not excessively so, he said.

Mumbai itself ended 0.73 per cent higher as investors ignored the coordinated attack by gunmen across the Indian metropolis that had forced India’s biggest stock market to shut on Thursday.

Al Goldman at Wachovia Securities said the US market is testing whether selling pressures have been exhausted and if the rally can hold.

We believe the economic news will remain very negative well into 2009, he said.

If the stock market can show cumulative buying despite bad data, the market would be saying it has discounted the economic and credit market problems. Much of the market’s attention was focused on the retail sector with Americans kicking off the holiday shopping season -- a period critical for retailers and the economy, with consumers under duress from the economic malaise.

The recent gains in Europe and elsewhere reflected investor enthusiasm for huge government support measures, notably in the United States and the eurozone, aimed at shoring up crisis-stricken banks and financial markets.

We have had political decisions in the right direction, principally in the United States, and we needed to breathe after some sharp falls, said analyst Guillaume Garabedian at financial management group Meeschaert in Paris.

The US government at the start of the week announced a $20-billion- bailout for banking giant Citigroup, along with $306 billion in loan guarantees. The Treasury Department later said it would make $800 billion available to the financial system to get credit flowing again.—-AFP