Stocks Just Had Their Best Day in 6 Weeks

The US stock market rallied to its best day in six weeks Thursday after falling oil prices and easing pressure from the bond market helped Wall Street reverse many of its moves from the prior day.

• The S&P 500 rose 85.95 points, or 1.1%, to 7,637.76 for its second rise in the last nine days.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 316.14 points, or 0.6%, to 51,778.04.
• The Nasdaq composite rose 439.87 points, or 1.7%, to 26,418.30.

Stocks got a boost after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil slid 1% to settle at $104.82, the AP reports. That's down from the nearly $110 it reached earlier in the week on worries that the war with Iran will keep oil bottled up in the Middle East instead of going to customers worldwide.

Brent is of course still much more expensive than the $72 per barrel that it cost earlier this summer, but Thursday's drop helped pull yields lower in the bond market and removed some pressure on stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.94% from 5.01% late Wednesday. On Wall Street, stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry continued to rebound following their worldwide slide on Monday. Nvidia climbed 2.5%, and Advanced Micro Devices rose 6.4%. That was even though OpenAI disclosed six more reports of "unexpected or concerning" behavior in AI models. Leaders of the AI industry over the weekend called for a slowdown in development to address safety issues for humanity.

Stocks of several homebuilders also rose, even though a report showed the industry broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected. The housing industry has been one of the hardest hit by the climb for the 10-year Treasury's yield, which topped 5% this week for the first time since 2023 and has pulled mortgage rates higher. Thursday's ease in yields helped DR Horton rise 1.5%, while PulteGroup added 1.1%. Rival Lennar erased an early loss and climbed 1.7% after reporting weaker profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

The Fed on Wednesday raised the short-term interest rate that it controls, the federal funds rate, by a quarter of a percentage point for its first hike in more than three years. Some reports on Thursday signaled the US economy may be strong enough to withstand higher interest rates. One said fewer US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. Another said that manufacturing growth in the mid-Atlantic region was stronger than economists expected. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said Wednesday that a strengthening economy is one of the reasons Fed officials moved to raise interest rates after keeping them on hold earlier this year.