GMAC decision and energy stocks lift Wall Street

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Friday as General Motors shares rallied on news its GMAC affiliate qualified to be a bank holding company while energy stocks got a boost from a rise in oil prices.

GMAC LLC, the financing arm of carmaker General Motors, won Federal Reserve approval on Wednesday to become a bank holding company, giving it access to government lending programs and helping it stave off bankruptcy.

The Fed's decision to give GMAC status as a bank holding company and make it eligible for aid under the government's $700 bailout fund removed some uncertainty and eased investors' concerns.

"It was still a question of whether they would get the financing," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatham, New Jersey.

"Any time you get an unanticipated event, that's a good thing. It could have easily gone the other way, and then there would have been problems."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 33.13 points, or 0.39 percent, to 8,501.61. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> gained 1.99 points, or 0.23 percent, to 870.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> added just 0.39 of a point, or 0.03 percent, to 1,525.29.

Shares of General Motors, a Dow component, rose almost 15 percent to $3.73. The stock of Ford Motor gained 9 percent to $2.30.

U.S. oil futures climbed above $36 a barrel on Friday after the United Arab Emirates joined leading exporter Saudi Arabia in deepening supply curbs in line with OPEC's announcement last week of its biggest-ever output cut.

Shares of Exxon Mobil advanced 0.8 percent to $76.41, making it the Dow's top performer.

Apple was a bright spot on the Nasdaq after the company said it will begin selling some models of the iPhone at Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Sunday.

Shares of Apple shot up 1.4 percent to $86.21 on Nasdaq while Wal-Mart ticked up 3 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $55.48 on the NYSE.

Many retailers, meanwhile, were hoping to make up for a dismal holiday shopping period so far by slashing prices in post-Christmas holiday sales to move inventory.

A report from SpendingPulse, a division of MasterCard Advisors, said sales were down 2 percent to 4 percent from a year ago for the full holiday season and declined 8 percent in December alone.

In contrast, online shopping at some companies was encouraging. Internet retailer Amazon.com said the recently completed shopping season was its best ever, with 6.3 million items ordered on its peak day of December 15.

Amazon's stock rose 2.2 percent to $52.54 and ranked second only to Apple among the top advancers in the Nasdaq 100 <.NDX>.

Jones Apparel surged nearly 35 percent to $5.23 in after the company said it had reduced its $1.25 billion in lines of credit into a single line of $600 million.

The S&P Retail Index <.RLX> rose 0.4 percent.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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