The stock market posted its biggest one-day gain since March 23, 2009 on Monday. The jump was in response to Europe’s $1 trillion rescue plan to aid troubled countries such as debt-plagued Greece and stabilize the euro, said CNN.com.

The Dow Jones surged 405 points, or 3.9 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 49 points, or 4.4 percent, and the Nasdaq jumped 109 points, or 4.8 percent.
Markets around the world also rose as the European Union took aggressive steps to contain a potential financial meltdown.

The rally comes after Thursday’s so-called “flash crash” when the Dow plummeted 998.50 points, the market’s biggest decline during one trading day, until it recovered about two-thirds of the loss at the end of the day. Thursday’s crash was blamed on a computer glitch, and on Monday the SEC and major stock exchanges agreed on a new framework to handle erroneous trades, said CNN.com.

Boeing, Caterpillar, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, McDonald’s and Procter & Gamble were among the companies that posted the biggest gains Monday.

A Commerce Department report released Thursday that showed growth in the gross domestic product sent the stock market soaring, with the Dow Jones posting a nearly 200 point gain.

At the end of trading on Friday, however, that gain was erased by another Commerce Depart report that said consumer spending dropped in September by the largest amount in nine months, according to the the New York Times.

The Dow Jones dropped nearly 250 points, or 2.5 percent.

The U.S. economy expanded by 3.5 percent between July and September, and household purchases rose 3.4 percent, according to the Thursday Commerce Department figures.

Much of the growth was attributable to government incentives such as the “cash-for-clunkers” program which spurred consumer spending on automobiles and an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

Purchases of durable goods, including autos, jumped 22 percent, and residential construction rose 23 percent in the last quarter, reported Bloomberg News.

That trend was reversed when the cash-for-clunkers program ended in September, said the New York Times.

Unemployment figures also remain dismal, leading President Obama to say the economy has “a long way to go” before it makes a full recovery.

The jobless rate reached a 26-year high of 9.8 percent in September, up from 7.6 percent when Obama took office in January, Bloomberg reported. Many economists predict the unemployment rate will top 10 percent in 2010.

The stock market dropped for the second week in a row, the first two-week decline since March, according to the National Business Review.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 34.01 points to end at 8438.39, a 1.2 percent drop for the week ending on June 26. The S&P 500 index dropped 2.9 percent overall in the two weeks since June 15.

Energy producers, makers of industrial equipment and real-estate companies posted the biggest losses as oil prices declined and new home sales fell, said the National Business Review.

Some analysts say a surprise decline in consumer confidence numbers may have driven down stocks.

In one bright spot, the Nasdaq rose 0.6 percent for the week ending June 26, driven largely by technology stocks.

The stock market faces further volatility as a flurry of economic data, including June jobs numbers and housing and manufacturing reports, are released in the first four days before the July 4 holiday.