New York, July 17 (DPA) Major US stock indices climbed Thursday for the fourth straight session amid hopes that the US recession will come to an end later this year.

Stocks rallied late in the trading day after a noted US economist, Nouriel Roubini, made some of his most optimistic comments yet on the state of the US economy, according to Bloomberg News.

Roubini, a professor at New York University, said the 19-month US recession would end later this year, revising his personal forecast for a turnaround in early 2010.

The freefall of the economy has stopped,' Roubini said at a conference of Chilean investors in New York, according to Bloomberg.