Bargain hunters up Dow 553 points

Stocks rose on Thursday and broke a three-day losing streak after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq experienced new five-year lows earlier in the session, triggering investors to put aside worries about the slow economy and scoop up sagging shares at fire-sale prices.

Finishing off an unstable session, energy stocks led the market higher alongside a recovery in oil prices as OPEC looked ready to cut production again. Chevron and Exxon Mobil gave the Dow its biggest boost, while oil rose over 5 percent above $59 a barrel in post-settlement trading.

But analysts said news about the economy was still dark, after Intel Corp cut its revenue outlook, highlighting concerns that the troubled global economy is hurting technology spending by businesses and consumers.

At one point during Thursday's session, the S&P 500 fell below its October 10 closing low to its lowest since March 2003.

Technical breach

A key technical breach that traders said suggested the market could find short-term support. The Dow industrials slightly fell below 8,000, while both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell through their 2008 lows set in October.

"The fundamental news right now is just dreadful," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York, adding that the market "ended up blowing through the support level we thought we had established at the bottom of the market on October 10."

Orlando said there was nothing important to account for the afternoon flow, noting that "technically, some folks thought they needed to put money to work."

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 552.59 points, or 6.67 percent, to 8,835.25. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index surged 58.99 points, or 6.92 percent, to 911.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 97.49 points, or 6.50 percent, to 1,596.70.

The three major U.S. indexes slipped in a wide band from high to low, with the S&P 500 traveling 94.32 points from its session low at 818.69 to intraday peak at 913.01, while the Dow industrials covered 911.17 points and the Nasdaq moved 168.16 points.

Chevron jumped 12.5 percent to $75.71, while Exxon rose 9.4 percent to $75.41. An S&P index of energy companies soared 11.1 percent.

Intel changed an earlier decline and rose 6.7 percent to close at $14.43 on the Nasdaq, starting other big-cap technology shares to shift gears and push higher.