Major Averages Close Sharply Higher For Second Straight Day

(RTTNews) - Stocks moved sharply higher during trading on Thursday, extending the recovery rally seen over the course of the previous session. The gains on the day further offset the sell-off that was seen over the past couple weeks.

Most of the major sectors saw significant strength on the day, although resource stocks helped to lead the markets higher.

Oil service stocks posted particularly strong gains, driving the Philadelphia Oil Service Index up by 6.5 percent. With the gain, the index climbed further off the six-year closing low it set on Tuesday.

The rally by oil service stocks came amid a sharp increase by the price of crude oil, with crude for October delivery surging up $3.96 to $42.56 a barrel.

Outside of the resource sector, substantial strength was also visible among semiconductor stocks, as reflected by the 3.7 percent gain posted by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

SunEdison (SUNE), Avago Technologies (AVGO), and Micron (MU) turned in some of the semiconductor sector's best performances.

Railroad, electronic storage, chemical, and telecom stocks also showed notable moves to the upside amid broad based buying interest.

The major averages gave up some of their gains in mid-afternoon trading but moved back to the upside going into the close. The Dow surged up 369.26 points or 2.3 percent to 16,654.77, the Nasdaq jumped 115.17 points or 2.5 percent to 4,812.71 and the S&P 500 shot up 47.15 points or 2.4 percent to 1,987.66.