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Wall Street received a RARE helping hand from the dollar. The Dow jumped 79 points to 12,843. The S&P rose 8 and the Nasdaq rallied 23. The beleagured dollar was resuscitated by promising signs from the labor market. To Wall Street's surprise - fewer Americans lined up for unemployment benefits last week. The dollar rally did lose some of its steam after a report showed an unexpected plunge in new homes sales for the month of March. There was alot of attention paid to the rice market. U.S. rice futures hit a record of $25 overnight on rising fear of a global supply shortage. And rice in Thailand surged to $1,000 a tonne. These are unprecedented times for the rice market, says Vic Lespinasse, market analyst, at Grainanalyst.com. "We're in virgin territory here and nobody quite knows what to do from day-to-day other than to continue to trade from the long side. To be bullish, because that's what worked so well for the many weeks and months. So the assumption is its going to continue to work for the time being." Rice finished lower at the CME Group as profit-takers stepped in. Meantime, a stronger dollar sent oil prices sharply lower. Crude closed at around $116 a barrel. In the equity market, tech stocks led the rally after overly strong numbers from Apple a day earlier. After the close, Microsoft beat profit targets, but revenues were a little light. Apple rose 3.7 percent. Microsoft rose 1 percent -ahead of the announcement. In Europe...Credit Suisse took another writedown - to the tune of $5.1 billion. That had a mixed impact on the markets. The German Dax and the Paris fell but the London FTSE rallied. Conway Gittens, Reuters COMPANIES MENTIONED: Microsoft, Apple, Credit Suisse SYMBOLS: MSFT, AAPL, CS