NEW YORK — Stocks started 2011 with a big lift on Monday, and that could be a promising sign for the rest of the year.

Investors call it the “January barometer.” According to the Stock Trader’s Almanac, a gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index during the first five days of January has led to annual gains nearly 90 percent of the time.

“All of the forecasts come out of Wall Street, and those expectations for the year give January a nice indicative effect of what the year will look like,” said Jeffery Hirsch, editor of the almanac.

Signs that the economy is improving pushed stock indexes higher on the first trading day of the year. Manufacturing activity and construction spending both rose more than analysts were predicting.

The Institute of Supply Management’s index of manufacturing activity rose in December for the 17th straight month. Separately, the Commerce Department said construction spending rose 0.4 percent in November.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 93.24 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 11,670.75, its highest close since Aug. 28, 2008. The index had been up as many as 134 points earlier in the day.

Treasury prices fell as the better economic news weakened demand for low-risk investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which rises as its price falls, moved up to 3.34 percent from 3.29 percent late Friday.

Small companies, which are considered riskier investments, surged. The Russell 2000, which tracks the performance of smaller stocks, jumped 1.9 percent. That’s nearly twice as big as the gain posted by the Dow, which tracks large companies.

That, too, could be part of a historical trend. In a pattern known as the “January effect,” smaller companies tend to do better early in the year than large ones. Some of that has to do with traders buying smaller companies early in the year after selling stocks they lost money on in December in order to reap tax benefits, Hirsch said.

In corporate news, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. gained 2.9 percent to $173.05 after The New York Times reported that it bought a stake in Facebook in a deal that valued the social networking company at $50 billion.