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Wall Street had its biggest gains in two weeks, giving the second quarter an overly bullish start, as investors sense a turning point in the credit crunch. The Dow surged 391 points, a gain of 3.2 percent. The S&P 500 soared 47 points or 3.6 percent. And the Nasdaq skyrocketed 83 points or about 3.7 percent. Lehman Bros. lifted hopes by raising $4 billion in a securities sale. America's fourth largest investment bank was able to raise the cash despite rumors the company was having funding trouble. Traders say strong demand for the offering was a much needed sign of confidence not only in Lehman Bros., but in U.S. stocks at large. Art Hogan is chief market analyst at Jefferies: SOUNDBITE: Art Hogan, chief market analyst, Jefferies (english) saying: "There is a lot of things pointing to the fact that we're probably at or close to a bottom here. And I think what we got today was a real strong signal from the financials that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We will be able to recapitalize. Certainly we are going to see some more write-offs in terms of exposure to CDOS, but that's part of the process of bottoming out." European banks also lent hope the worst is behind the market. Swiss banking giant UBS added $19 billion to its writedown total. And German bank Deutsche Bank unveiled a much smaller $3.9 billion write-off. Looking at shares of U.S. investment banks...Lehman Brothers rallied nearly 18 percent. Merrill Lynch jumped 13 percent. Goldman Sachs was up just shy of 7 percent. Good news from the economy kept the bulls fully in charge. Factory activity contracted for the second month, but the depth of that contraction was less severe than feared. That sign of stabilization gave the dollar a bounce, which in turn pushed commodities lower. Crude oil fell for the third day in a row. And gold prices came close to a 10-week low. As for the European bourses...The German Dax jumped 2.8 percent. The Paris CAC-40 soared about 3.4 percent. The German Dax was up 2.6 percent. Conway Gittens, Reuters COMPANIES MENTIONED: Lehman Bros,. Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Deutsche Bank SYMBOLS: LEH, MER, GS, UBS, DB