U.S. stocks finished mostly higher Tuesday as oil prices and Treasury yields retreated, allowing Wall Street to recover from an early session dominated by renewed inflation and interest-rate concerns.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 529.85 points, or 1.02%, to 52,495.88. The S&P 500 gained 0.28% to 7,712.57, while the Nasdaq Composite finished nearly unchanged, slipping 0.02% to 26,424.82.
The reversal was significant because Tuesday began with many of the pressures that had weighed on markets in recent sessions.
Brent crude reached $111.99 a barrel intraday, its highest level in five months, before reversing and settling 0.69% lower at $108.79. West Texas Intermediate settled 1.8% lower at $101.79.
Treasuries also provided relief. The benchmark U.S. 10-year yield fell as low as 5.073% before trading near 5.12%, easing some of the financing pressure that has weighed on equities.
Rate expectations shifted with it. Markets assigned a lower probability to another Federal Reserve increase at next week’s meeting than they had earlier this month.
Technology shares remained more restrained as investors waited for another major round of earnings to determine whether enormous spending on artificial-intelligence infrastructure is producing sufficient revenue and profits to justify valuations and financing requirements.
The close therefore produced a materially different picture from the morning session, when Nasdaq futures were falling and oil was reaching a five-month high. Cedar covered that earlier setup before the market opened.
Oil remains expensive and Treasury yields remain elevated, but Tuesday demonstrated how quickly equities can respond when both pressures ease simultaneously.
The next test is whether that relief survives upcoming technology earnings and whether oil can remain below its latest five-month high.
