Stocks rose Monday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced it will buy Bear Stearns Cos. for about $10 per share.

The amended sale price is about five times larger than the initial agreement when JPMorgan said it would buy the beleaguered investment bank for about $2 per share.

Wall Street responded well to the news as the Dow Jones posted its second straight triple-digit advance and its third in four sessions. The blue chip index finished with a gain of 187 points at 12,548. Advancing issues on the New York Stock Exchange led losers better than 4-to-1 on volume of about 4.3 billion shares. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 68 points at the 2,326 level, with roughly 2.2 billion shares traded. And the S&P 500 added 20 points, closing at 1,349.

The New York Times reported on its Web site early Monday that discussions were under way that would have raised the offer on the beleaguered financial company. That news sent Bear Stearns shares up more than 65 percent, or $3.89, to $9.85 in premarket trading on the report.

The talks, which started Sunday, were an attempt to satisfy Bear Stearns stockholders upset over JPMorgan's offer of $2 a share for the struggling investment bank, the newspaper said on its Web site, citing people involved in the negotiations.

The original price for Bear Stearns was part of a deal struck last week at the urging of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.

"Let me say that the Bear Stearns situation has been very painful for the Bear Stearns shareholders," Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said last week on the NBC "Today" show, referring to the $2 a share price. "So I don’t think that they think that they’ve been bailed out here."

The New York Times reported Bear Stearns employees own more than a third of the company's stock, and many longtime employees faced the prospect of losing all their savings.

The new price would still be a small fraction of what Bear Stearns was worth before its recent meltdown. Its had been trading as high as $170 per share a year ago, and $67 per share two weeks ago.

The British billionaire financier Joe Lewis, the firm’s largest shareholder has invested $1.26 billion in Bear over the past year at an average price of about $104, the New York Times reported. The paper said that Lewis, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said that he would seek to block the deal by taking "whatever action" necessary and would "encourage" the firm and "third parties to consider other strategic transactions."

The Fed, which would need to approve any change in the agreement, was balking at the new price, the Times said. Such opposition could postpone the new agreement or derail it entirely.

In an attempt to speed majority shareholder approval, Bears board was trying to authorize the sale of 39.5 percent of the firm to JPMorgan, the Times said. State law in Delaware, where the companies are incorporated, allows a company to sell up to 40 percent without shareholder approval.

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan declined to comment Sunday night, the Times said. A Bear Stearns representative could not be reached.

A spokesman for the Federal Reserve would not comment on the central banks involvement in the negotiations, but denied it had directed the original sale price, the newspaper said.