The markets reversed course today as investors settled down from all the bad news Tuesday. Stabilization overnight in the European markets helped the Dow 30 close higher by 306, the S&P 500 add 34, and the Nasdaq 100 finish up 65. The Euro (NYSE: FXE) also recovered a little against the dollar.
Energy names saved the day in the Dow. Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) led the pack with gains of over 3% each. The boost came as a sharp bounce off support for the price of oil. The steep decline in recent days pushed the price of oil right back to the technical uptrend level traders found as support. This also helped many of the S&P 500 energy names, as well as the sector as a whole (NYSE: XLE). Oil closed higher by over 2%.
The Russell 2000 also helped as the index hit new highs. The index has been quite strong lately as investors run from the global concerns to the small cap growth stocks. Stocks in the Russell 2000 that had notable moves were Shake Shack (NASDAQ: SHAK), which broke to new highs, Movado (NYSE: MOV), which added a whopping 16% on the day, and Grubhub (NASDAQ: GRUB), which added 6%.
Further evidence that global issues are on the outs came from trading seen in the bond market. The 10 year traded off its lows of the week, leaving the day at 2.84% as long-term investors in bonds took the opportunity to close out some of their position.
In other news, Target (NYSE: TGT) shares were higher by almost 3% as Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) named the stock one of its top investment ideas. Bank of America said they believe that "the company should benefit from the discount store cycle," and that "its US business should accelerate in 2018 and result in market share gains longer-term."
Dicks Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) shares shot higher today by 27% as the company handily beat first quarter earnings expectations. Technical traders noted the break above a recent range as a new buying opportunity.