Wall Street rallies as oil prices rebound

By Ankur Banerjee and Abhiram Nandakumar

REUTERS - U.S. stocks rallied strongly on Thursday, with the S&P 500 crossing a key technical level, as a rebound in oil prices boosted energy companies.

All 10 major S&P sectors were higher. The energy sector's 3.6-percent rise, their best performance in three weeks, led the gainers as U.S. crude prices rose more than 2.5 percent.

Exxon and Chevron were up about 1 percent, giving the biggest boosts to the S&P 500 and the Dow.

"We've been looking for some sort of bounce for a while now," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.

"Normally, when you have increased volatility, you get some upside as well."

The market has made multiple attempts at rallies this year, but they have fallen flat over worries about China's economy, plunging oil prices and fresh global political concerns.

At 12:35 a.m. ET (1735 GMT) the Dow Jones industrial average was up 211.89 points, or 1.31 percent, at 16,363.3.

The S&P 500 was up 25.18 points, or 1.33 percent, at 1,915.46 and the Nasdaq Composite index was up 61.18 points, or 1.35 percent, at 4,587.25.

U.S. stocks have tumbled this year and on Wednesday sank more than 2.5 percent, pushing the S&P 500 to close below 1,900 for the first time since Sept. 29.

"We've seen such a strong selloff and moved into correction territory for the year, there's more of a 'sentiment-in-momentum' trade that is underway rather than a focus on fundamentals," Bill Northey, chief investment officer of the private client group at U.S. Bank.

In corporate news, JPMorgan rose 2.4 percent to $58.73 on better-than-expected results, boosting the financial sector by 0.8 percent.

Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America all rose about 1 percent.

Chipotle was up 2.7 percent at $439.19 after the company expressed confidence in preventing future food poisoning outbreaks at its chains.

Best Buy dropped about 9.3 percent to $26.53 after the electronics retailer reported disappointing holiday sales.

GoPro Inc slumped about 19 percent to $11.85 after the action camera maker estimated weak holiday-quarter revenue and said it would cut 7 percent of its workforce.

Intel is scheduled to report results after close.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,717 to 1,276. On the Nasdaq, 1,733 issues rose and 992 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed no new 52-week highs and 115 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded three new highs and 412 new lows.

(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)