NEW YORK – The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up for the year. And for once, it was the housing market that sent stocks soaring.

The S&P 500, considered Wall Street’s most important indicator, bounded up 3.4 percent Monday and erased the last of its losses for 2009. And the Dow Jones industrials shot up more than 200 points and had their first finish above 8,400 since Jan. 13.

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