Wall Street rose moderately on Friday as GMAC Financial Services, the financing arm of General Motors, was approved to become a bank holding company.

The U.S. Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it has granted a request by GMAC to become a bank. That means the company has been allowed to petition for money from the government's 700 billion dollar financial rescue program.

GMAC Financial Services will also be able to get emergency loans directly from the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. Without backing, GMAC could have been forced into bankruptcy protection.

GM's stocks jumped to close 12.62 percent higher, Ford rose 8. 53 percent.

The market also was boosted by Amazon.com Inc., after the online retailer sold 6.3 million items Dec. 15, the busiest day of what the world's largest Internet retailer said was its best holiday shopping season.

However, the chance of a big year-end rally of stocks is slim as total U.S. retail sales during the Christmas-New Year period plunged amid a prolonged recession.

Total retail sales dropped by up to eight percent during the traditional November-December shopping period, the MasterCard Inc. 's SpendingPulse unit said in a preliminary survey report.

The Dow Jones rose 47.07 to close at 8,515.55. Broader indexes were also higher. The Standard Poor's 500 index rose 4.65 to 872.80. The Nasdaq rose 5.34 to 1,530.24.

(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2008)