Wall Street barrels back in late rally, led by HP

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks staged a late fight back on Tuesday after a choppy session in which stronger-than-expected results and outlook from computer maker Hewlett-Packard offset fears that more losses at Citigroup (C.N: Quote) and other banks are yet to come.

Stocks swung between negative and positive territory. Traders took heart that the market stayed above five-year lows.

HP helped the Dow outperform the other indexes as the computer maker's results underscored its resilience in the face of the economic crisis. HP jumped almost 15 percent.

"There's optimism that these lows are holding and so we had a bit of an opportunity rally here," said Richard Sparks, senior equities analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. "There was no good news I saw today apart from Hewlett Packard."

Citigroup's shares fell 6 percent to $8.36, hitting a 13-year low, on concern that its plan to slash 52,000 jobs might not be enough to return the second-largest U.S. bank to health.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI rose 151.17 points, or 1.83 percent, to 8,424.75. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX gained 8.37 points, or 0.98 percent, to 859.12. And the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC added just 1.22 points, or 0.08 percent, to 1,483.27.

HP's stock shot up 14.5 percent to end at $33.59 on the New York Stock Exchange, while another tech bellwether and Dow component, International Business Machines Corp(IBM.N: Quote) rose 3.4 percent to $80.08.

Earlier in the session, the Dow had fallen as low as 8,105.44, while the S&P 500 tumbled to an intraday low of 826.84, below its 2008 closing low, and the Nasdaq dropped as low as 1,429.92.

Despite the indexes' wild swings throughout the day, investors' fear seemed to have ebbed, at least for the moment. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index .VIX, or the VIX, lost 2.18 percent to end at 67.64. The VIX is Wall Street's favorite fear barometer.