Stocks close higher as choppy trading persists and oil slips

Technology companies led a broad rally for stocks on Wall Street on Thursday, reversing most of the major indexes’ losses from a day earlier and extending the market’s recent run of uneven trading.

The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, more than making up for its pullback a day earlier. More than 85% of the stocks in the benchmark index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial

Average gained 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 1.9%.

The latest gains pulled the S&P 500 out of the red for the week. The Nasdaq is also on pace for a weekly gain, while the Dow is down slightly for the week after the indexes alternated between gains and losses over the past few days.

“There’s a little bit of tug-ofwar right now ... and investors are just looking for direction,” said Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer for wealth & investment management at Wells Fargo.

The S&P 500 rose 63.92 points to 4,520.16, while the Dow gained 349.44 points to 34,707.94. The Nasdaq climbed 269.23 to 14,191.84.

Small company stocks also rallied. The Russell 2000 rose 23.24 points, or 1.1%, to 2,075.44.

Technology stocks accounted for the biggest share by far of the gains in the S&P 500, followed closely by communication companies. Many Big Tech companies have outsized values that tend to sway the broader market in either direction. Chipmaker Nvidia vaulted 9.8% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Facebook parent, Meta, rose 2.9%.

Health care stocks also had some of the strongest gains. Insurers Unitedhealth Group rose 2% and Anthem gained 2.5%.

Stocks indexes have been upand-down after coming off a strong rally last week. Investors are trying to gauge how the economy and corporate profits will be affected this year as the Federal Reserve moves to raise interest rates in order to tame surging inflation.