Stocks made another attempt to bottom Tuesday from their sharp one-week decline, as falling oil prices and stronger than expected new home sales encouraged buyers.
The tech sector led the way higher, with the Nasdaq rising 1.5%. The Dow and S&P were up about 0.6% each.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT), Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) all posted gains of 2.7% or more.
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), which reports quarterly results Thursday night, rose 1.4%. Its shares are up 15% this month ahead of the report, as traders have taken a lack of a negative pre-announcement from the company as a sign it will meet Wall Street estimates.
China Telecom (NYSE: CHL) lost 5.5% on worries about a telecom shakeup in China.
Infineon (NYSE: IFX) fell 4% on the departure of CEO Wolfgang Ziebart.
NetSuite (NYSE: N) was up 8.6% on no apparent news.
The Nasdaq rose 36 to 2481, the S&P added 9 to 1385, and the Dow rose 68 to 12,548. Volume rose to 3.49 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.76 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 20-12 margin on the NYSE, and 19-10 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 58% on the NYSE, and 78% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 37-79 on the NYSE, and 67-103 on the Nasdaq.