As Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill called business honesty “the new patriotism,” personal oaths from CEOs and chief financial officers (CFOs) flooded the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), along with a few results restatements.

As the filings poured into the SEC, stocks soared, pushing the Standard & Poor’s 500 index up 4 per cent to its highest level in a month as reassurances of the accuracy of past results eased investor fears of corporate skulduggery.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 260 points, or 3 per cent, at 8743.31 points. Of the 942 companies covered by the SEC’s unprecedented, one-time order requiring CEO and CFO certifications of past results, 695 had to comply by the close of business on 14 August. Another 247 companies will file later.

A half-hour after the SEC’s 5:30 pm EDT cut-off, officers of 620 of the 695 companies due to certify on 14 August had done so, according to a Reuters analysis of SEC website data, the online Edgar-Online financial filing service, a private investor data service and company reports.

As nervous markets scanned for companies failing to comply, the SEC was sending investors to Edgar (www.edgar-online.com) to check whether individual company CEOs and CFOs had taken their oaths.

President George W Bush, speaking in Milwaukee, noted the SEC deadline and said: “By far the vast majority of those who run corporate America are good, honourable people. We’re not going to let the few ruin the reputations of the many.”