NEW YORK (AP) -- The stock market got a big jump on a better year.

After a flat 2011, stocks rose sharply Tuesday in the first trading of 2012 after investors returned from the holiday and found encouraging economic reports from the United States and around the world.....................................

January is a fairly good predictor of the year for U.S. stocks. Only seven times since 1950 has January turned out to be a " major error" in predicting the year to come, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.  In other words, whichever direction the market has gone in January, the rest of the year has usually followed.

The " major errors" are usually extraordinary events, the almanac points out. In 2001, for example, the S& P 500 rose 3.5 percent in January, but the market was rocked by the Sept. 11 attacks and finished the year down 13 percent.

The first day of the year is less useful for fortune-telling than the first month. If you were to bet on whether the market would finish the year up or down based on how it performed the first day, you would be right only about half the time....//