Wall Street shares skyrocketed as the market cheered a government-private sector plan to clean up toxic assets clogging the balance sheets of banks to help stabilise the US economy.

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average catapulted 497.48 points (6.84 per cent) to 7,775.86 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq leapt 98.50 points (6.76 per cent) to 1,555.77. The broad Standard & Poor's 500 powered higher by 54.38 points (7.08 per cent) to a preliminary close of 822.92.