The S&P 500 closed six points higher at 2,048. The Dow Jones closed 35 points firmer at 17,577. The mid-cap S&P 400 rose nine points to 1,427 and the small-cap Russell 2,000 put on five points at 1,098.
Mid-session
The fight back by equities ran out of steam towards the end of the morning.
The Nasdaq Composite actually moved into the red, shedding 12 points at 4,836 but the S&P 500 remained in positive territory, up five at 2,047.
The mid-cap S&P 400 was making a slightly better fist of things, up seven points at 1,426, while the small-cap measure the Russell 2,000 was up three points at 1,096.
A recovery in the oil price whetted investors appetite for risk again, while metals prices also tended firmer.
West Texas Intermediate for May delivery shot up 6.3% to $39.61 a barrel, as speculators gambled that US output would continue to slide, even if next week’s Opec meeting in Doha is not expected to yield much – if anything – in terms of agreements to throttle back supply.
Drug manufacturer DepoMed Inc (NASDAQ:DEPO) was wanted, rising 12.3% to $16.85 after activist investor Starboard Value petitioned the specialty drug manufacturer to put itself up for sale.
DepoMed said it welcomed open communications with its shareholders but noted it had not received any communication from Starboard prior to it filing a Schedule 13D yesterday.
Leading the Nasdaq lower was Viking Therapeutics, Inc (NASDAQ:VKTX) after it priced its public offering of common stock and warrants.
The shares slid 76 cents to $1.17 as it said the units would be offered at $1.25 a pop as it looked to raise $9.38mln.
Open
Leading shares opened sharply higher, following the lead of stocks in Europe.
On what is set to be a fallow day for economic news, investors returned to the market following yesterday's shake-out, pushing the benchmark S&P 500 up 17 points to 2,058 and the more narrowly-based Dow Jones average up 130 points to 17,672.
Further down the food chain, mid-caps are doing even better, judging by the performance of the S&P 400, which was up 15 points at 1,434.
Small-caps also joined the party, propelling the Russell 2,000 index eight points higher at 1,101.
“There wasn’t much for the US markets to work with this afternoon,” said London-based financial analyst Connor Campbell at spread betting firm Spreadex, “though a statement from Fed vice-chair William Dudley, who claims he still judges ‘the balance of risks to [his] inflation and growth outlooks to be tilted slightly to the downside’, likely reassured investors that a rate hike won’t be happening any time soon.”
Teladoc, Inc (NYSE:TDOC), a provider of on-demand health care advice, topped expectations for customer visits to its services in the first quarter. In all, 240,000 visits were recorded, up 61% on the 149,000 visits recorded in the corresponding period of 2015, and higher than the company's own guidance range of 220,000 to 230,000.
The shares perked up, advancing 9.4% to $11.27.
A rise of twice that level was recorded by Alliance Fiber Optic Products (NASDAQ:AFOP), as it rose $2.98 to $18.44, after Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) made an agreed bid worth $18.50 a share.
The maker of high-performance passive optical components has been valued by the glass and ceramics manufacturer at around $305mln.