UPDATE 6- US stocks recover from bout of profit-taking.

(From FT Investor (Stories))

US stocks battled back to end the day with gains, after prices tumbled from early highs in a session dictated by wide stock swings set off by the release of a better-than-expected reading on consumer confidence.

Stocks spiked after news spread that the consumer confidence index shot up to a reading of 81.0 in April, well ahead of expectations and following four months of steady declines. Most of those gains, however, had disappeared by late morning, as investors began to sell off as the the markets approached former highs.

Ryan Smith, a trader at Banc One Securities, said the market ran into a level of technical …