Mumbai, March 18 -- The Dow jumped 353.44 points (0.9%) to 41,841.63, the S&P 500 climbed 36.18 points (0.6%) to 5,675.12 and the Nasdaq rose 54.58 points (0.3%) to 17,808.66.

Positive sentiment was also generated in reaction to the Commerce Department's report on U.S. retail sales in the month of February. The Commerce Department said retail sales rose by 0.2% in February after tumbling by a revised 1.2% in January. While the uptick by retail sales missed expectations for an increase of 0.7%, traders seem relieved that the data wasn't even worse. However, traders seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

Gold stocks strongly moved upwards, driving the NYSE ...