U.S. Stocks Start Strongly Ahead On Crude's Slide

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - U.S. stocks started higher on Tuesday as oil declined to below $110 a barrel after the U.S. Gulf was spared major storm damage and Korea Development Bank said it might acquire a stake in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 210.47 points to 11,754.43

The S&P 500 gained 17.25 points to stand at 1,300.08 , while the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite was up 39.68 points at 2,407.20.

The session will include the Institute of Supply Management's manufacturing gauge for August, along with construction data for July.

Equities and the U.S. dollar rose amid a broad decline in commodities, with light sweet crude tumbling after oil installations in the Gulf were spared much of the damage that many had feared. Crude for October delivery was recently off $7.50 to $107.96 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. .

Gold futures fell sharply, with the contract for December delivery falling $35.3 to $799.90 an ounce in early electronic trading. .

The dollar climbed, with the dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against other major currencies, up 0.9%. .

The financial sector drew early support after Korea Development Bank confirmed it's in talks to buy a piece of Lehman , among the hardest hit Wall Street firms in the credit crisis. .

Shares of Freddie Mac gained 14% ahead of an auction of at least $3 billion in long-term debt from the government-sponsored mortgage finance company.

Google Inc. gained 3.4% on reports it plans to launch a web browser to compete with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 dropped 1.8%, a day after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda resigned. .

In Europe, the German DAX 30 rose 1.5% on the drop in oil prices.

On Friday, U.S. stocks stumbled after personal computer maker Dell Inc. offered worse-than-forecast quarterly results, with the major indexes still posting monthly gains for August.

By Kate Gibson