STOCKS made an historic rally on Wednesday with the three biggest indexes up by 5 percent or more.

Reversing a trend that threatened to push the stock market into the red for 2018, the Dow Jones Average posted its biggest gain ever on Wednesday, jumping up by 1,086 points, an increase of 5 percent. The Standard and Poor 500 index was also up by 5 percent and NASDAQ by 5.8 percent.

Technology stocks were among the hottest, with Amazon up 9.5 percent, Facebook and Netflix up 8 percent, while Apple rose by 7 percent.

The biggest leaps among retailers were by Kohl’s (10.3 percent) and Nike (up 7.2 percent).

Trump visits troops in Iraq

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump made a surprise visit to American troops in Iraq on Wednesday.

DONALD TRUMP (Gage Skidmore photo).

He spent three hours at Al Asad Air Base, greeting servicemen and servicewomen, posing for photos and signing autographs before addressing about 100 members of the military.

Speaking about America’s involvements in overseas wars, Trump said, “If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price. Sometimes that’s also a monetary price, so we’re not the suckers of the world. We’re no longer the suckers, folks. And people aren’t looking at us as suckers.”