Stocks end January on upswing

Stocks soared on the last trading day of January, with Microsoft, Visa, and other tech stocks making the biggest gains in a broad market rally.

Indexes rose throughout the day and finished with their biggest gains in about five months. Asian stocks jumped after the Bank of Japan moved to stimulate the economy, and European markets also rose. In the U.S, tech stocks climbed following strong fourth-quarter results from Microsoft and Visa. Materials companies and banks also made large gains, and the price of oil rose for the fourth day in a row.

The Dow Jones industrial average surged 396.66 points, or 2.5 percent, to 16,466.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 46.88 points, or 2.5 percent, to 1,940.24, as more than 480 of its component stocks rose. The Nasdaq composite index jumped 107.27 points, or 2.4 percent, to 4,613.95.

Stocks made some big gains in the last two weeks, but still finished January with hefty losses.

Microsoft added $3.04, or 5.8 percent, to $55.09 after its fourth-quarter profit and revenue beat expectations. The tech giant posted strong results from its cloud computing business and the unit that sells PC software and Surface tablets and Xbox game consoles.

Visa and MasterCard both rose after reporting solid results. Visa climbed $5.16, or 7.4 percent, to $74.49 and MasterCard picked up $5.60, or 6.7 percent, to $89.03.

E-commerce company Amazon took its largest one-day slide in more than a year. Amazon's quarterly profit more than doubled, but it still fell short of Wall Street's forecasts because of increased costs. Some of those related to its Fulfillment by Amazon service, which handles shipping for sellers and makes them eligible for Amazon Prime shipping. The stock lost $48.35, or 7.6 percent, to $587.

Crude oil prices kept rising. Benchmark U.S. oil added 40 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $33.62 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, gained 85 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $34.74. Oil prices have increased for four days in a row as investors hope for cuts in global production.

January was a tough month for the market, and the beginning of the year was the worst in the history of the Dow average and the S&P 500 index. Both fell into a correction, or a drop of at least 10 percent from a recent peak.

The small-cap Russell 2000 index entered a bear market, which means a 20 percent slide.

The Dow and S&P 500 both fell more than 5 percent in January, while the Nasdaq lost almost 8 percent. For each index, that was the largest drop in a single month in years. The Russell finished January down almost 9 percent.