Microsoft Left Out Of Big Rally

Stocks rebounded sharply on Tuesday, a day after the Dow and S&P 500 closed at their lowest levels since 1997.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave the market a much-needed boost when he said the recession might end this year and that officials don’t plan to nationalize banks.

Every stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day higher — except one. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) slipped 4 cents after the company said that business remains tough and reiterated its interest in a search deal with Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Yahoo shares gained 6.5% on the news, while the Nasdaq was up 3.9%.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) gained 3.8% ahead of its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, while Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) climbed 3.4% ahead of its quarterly earnings report on Thursday.

Rambus (NASDAQ: RMBS) soared 40% on a favorable court ruling.

Micron (NYSE: MU) gained nearly 15% on plans to eliminate as much as 2,000 jobs.

Stocks with gains of 5% or more included Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA), Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and VMware (NYSE: VMW).

Hifn (NASDAQ: HIFN) soared 62% on news that it will be acquired by Exar (NASDAQ: EXAR).

WebMediaBrands (NASDAQ: WEBM), publisher of this Web site, rose 12% after changing its name from Jupitermedia and selling its stock photo business to Getty Images.

The Nasdaq rose 54 to 1441, the S&P 500 surged 29 to 773, and the Dow gained 236 to 7350. Volume rose to 8.25 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.39 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 32-6 margin on the NYSE, and 20-7 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 93% on the NYSE, and 88% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 3-421 on the NYSE, and 6-315 on the Nasdaq.