Late Rally Saves Wall Street

Updated from 4:19 p.m. EST

Wall Street explored both positive and negative territory in another chaotic round of trading Wednesday, but when the close finally came, the major averages were sitting at their session highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 146.24 points, or 1.16%, to 12,735.31, and the S&P 500 rose 18.94 points, or 1.36%, to 1409.13. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 34.04 points, or 1.39%, at 2474.55, its first winning session of 2008.

On the Dow, a 4.8% rise in DuPont(DD Quote) and a gain of 2.9% in shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ Quote) offset a 2.2% decline in General Motors (GM Quote). ...