* White House extends $17.4 billion loan to automakers
* RIM, Oracle rise after quarterly results boost Nasdaq
* Retailers hurt as snow and rain threaten sales
* Dow up 0.5 pct, S&P up 0.9 pct, Nasdaq up 1.2 pct
* For up-to-the-minute market news, please click on
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(Updates to midday, changes byline)
By Deepa Seetharaman
NEW YORK, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday
after briefly flirting with negative territory following the
U.S. government's announcement that it would extend a $17.4
billion lifeline to automakers buckling under falling consumer
demand in the face of a year-long recession.
Stocks tempered an earlier 2 percent rise as investors
grappled with the fact that the auto bailout was a temporary
measure to a long-term problem that could have serious effects
on the U.S. economy.
"In the plan, there's no new news about how the auto
industry is going to come out of this," said Giri Cherukuri,
head trader at OakBrook Investments LLC, in Lisle, Illinois.
"It's not a true solution to the problem."
Retailers were another drag on the market and the S&P
Retailers Index <.RLX> fell 2 percent as heavy snow and
inclement weather nationwide threatened to dampen sales during
the last weekend before the Christmas holiday.
The Dow Jones industrial average <> advanced 45.56
points, or 0.53 percent, to 8,650.55. The Standard & Poor's
500 Index <.SPX> rose 8.26 points, or 0.93 percent, to 893.54.
The Nasdaq Composite Index <> gained 19.18 points, or
1.24 percent, to 1,571.55.
Shares of General Motors Corp <GM.N> jumped 11.2 percent
to $4.07 after U.S. President George W. Bush said it would be
irresponsible to let the companies go bankrupt. For details,
see []
Investors had feared wide-reaching fallout from the
potential failure of one of Detroit's Big Three automakers.
The government loans would be called back if they cannot prove
they are viable by March 31, an administration official said.
Rival Ford Motor Corp <F.N> jumped 1.1 percent to $2.87.
The Nasdaq outperformed the other indexes, lifted by gains
in Oracle Corp <ORCL.O> and Research in Motion <RIM.TO>
<RIMM.O> the day after both companies reported quarterly
results that were better than Wall Street's lowered
expectations.
Shares of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion surged
almost 10 percent to $42.12 on Nasdaq. After the bell on
Thursday, the company gave a better-than-expected growth
forecast for its smartphone devices. [].
Oracle's stock also climbed nearly 8 percent to $17.88,
the day after the business software maker reported a drop in
new sales that was not as bad as some had feared.
But a drop in retailers' stocks, including Nordstrom Inc
<JWN.N> and JC Penney Co Inc <JCP.N>, helped curtail previous
gains as weekend sales were threatened by inclement weather.
Nordstrom's stock fell 6.8 percent to $12.51 and JC Penney
lost 3.6 percent to $19.99, both on the New York Stock
Exchange.
"The snow on the East Coast will hurt those retailers,
especially as it is the busiest shopping weekend of the year,"
said David Berman of hedge fund Durban Capital in New York,
which specializes in consumer and retail-related stocks.
(Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Jan
Paschal)
