AFP - Wall Street soared Tuesday in an explosive rally after troubled banking giant Citigroup's upbeat profit outlook prompted a buying frenzy that lifted beaten-down stocks.
  
The Dow Jones Industrial Average vaulted 373.39 points (5.7 percent) to 6,920.44 at the closing bell, as blue chips rebounded strongly from 12-year lows Monday.
  
The tech-dominated Nasdaq leapt 89.64 points (7.07 percent) to 1,358.28 while the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 index rallied 42.61 points (6.30 percent) to a preliminary close of 719.14.
  
The rebound came as an internal memo showed struggling US banking giant Citigroup is seeing a return to profitability in early 2009 after punishing losses last year
  
Chief executive Vikram Pandit said Citi has been profitable for the first two months of 2009 and was having its "best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007."
  
"Wall Street was in dire need of some good news, and Citigroup delivered," said Joseph Hargett at Schaeffer's Investment Research.