Energy stocks lead an early market gain as oil price climbs

The S&P energy sector.SPNY rose 2.8 percent and led the 10 major sectors on the index by a wide margin.

Wednesday’s rally helped drive another good day for the broader market. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 25.32 points, or 1.2 per cent, to 2,064.29 and the Nasdaq composite rose 44.82 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 5,045.93. The Dow ended Tuesday up nearly 1 percent, while the S&P 500 rose 0.88 percent and the Nasdaq 0.65 percent.

Global markets meandered Thursday after early gains from surging oil prices faded in light pre-Christmas holiday trading.

Within energy, beleaguered exploration-and-production companies were the biggest gainers.

Earlier on Tuesday the U.S. Commerce Department trimmed third-quarter economic growth to a 2 percent annual pace from the 2.1 percent estimated earlier.

CNOOC, PetroChina and Sinopec in Hong Kong all soared four percent while Woodside gained more than one percent in Sydney. Prices for both contracts had fallen by more than a third over the past year but gains over the past day have provided hope to investors that the sector has hit bottom and is now stabilizing. The loonie rose 0.42 of a USA cent to 72.17 cents US.

“The market lately has been ruled pretty clearly by oil in particular, and more broadly, commodity prices”.

This December has been turbulent for financial markets.

Oil and gas company shares rose sharply, easily beating out other sectors in the market.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures are building on two days of positive momentum, ahead of a busy day on the economic front. This is the ninth straight session of triple-digit moves and 15th this month for the blue-chip index. Trading volumes are expected to remain thin through the holiday period.

“The sell-off that we had coming into the Christmas week here is probably more than anything responsible for the bounce back”, said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis.

Energy firms were buoyant after a painful year. The Russell 2000, the benchmark for small-company stocks, has fallen 4.3% in 2015.

London-listed mining stocks dominated the list of Europe’s top performing shares on stronger London copper prices, with Glencore and Anglo American rising 8.4 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively. The iShares iBoxx USD High Yield Corporate Bond Exchange-Traded Fund, the largest high-yield bond ETF by assets, added 0.6%. The euro sat at $1.0930 – heading towards $1.10 from just above $1.08 last week following the Fed rate rise, with speculation the next rise could be as late as April.