Stock Market Skyrockets After Fiscal Deal

the giant new year's surge in the stock market today. It was a kind of celebration, after congress finally took action to pass a deal on taxes, averting the fiscal cliff. The dow jumped 232 points at... See More

the giant new year's surge in the stock market today. It was a kind of celebration, after congress finally took action to pass a deal on taxes, averting the fiscal cliff. The dow jumped 232 points at the opening bell and then kept soaring, gaining more than 308 points by closing time. And abc's bianna golodryga is o tell us about american retirement accounts and if this bounce is expected to last. Reporter: Good evening, diane. As one trader just told me moments ago, there was a huge sigh of relief on wall street today. Investors liking what they heard from washington overnight a lot. The dow jones up 300 points the largest gain the market has seen in over a year. If you combine today's 300-plus jump with the additional 166 points from new year's eve, the blue chips had their biggest point gains ever for the last day and first day of any year. We saw a relief rally, with the deal being done. Reporter: All 30 dow jones stocks were up and more than 90% of the s&p 500. The markets were optimistic that the economy wouldn't fall into recession after congress agreed to a deal that prevented most tax increases and postponed painful government spending cuts for another two months. Fwig name stocks and technology companies, the engines that help fuel economic growth, did particularly well today. Removing uncertainty like the fiscal cliff, things like the debt ceiling, that's going to help bring things into a clearer focus and should ultimately help both the economic performance and the performance of EVERYONE'S 401(k). Reporter: That's a relief to the 60 million americans who are INVESTED IN 401(k)s. 2012 had already been a good year. If you were invested entirely in the s&p 500, the average 4) would have gained $10,000 in the last year alone. Today's rally alone added $1,900 TO THE AVERAGE 401(k). One thing to keep in mind, traders told me had we gone over the fiscal cliff instead of talking about a 300-point rally, it would have been a selloff, if not worse. Volatility not over for the week. Big jobs report coming on friday. Expect 160,000 jobs added in december. Okay, bianna, thank you so