The S&P 500 climbed more than 2.4% in afternoon trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 619 points, or 1.9%. In the bond market, the yield on 10-year Treasury bills rose from 2.817% to 2.875%. Yields and bond prices move in opposite directions. Oil prices soared, pushing up shares of energy companies, as German government officials said the country was now ready to stop buying Russian oil. Benchmark Brent oil rose 2% to $107.04 a barrel.

Traders said the stock market was poised to rally after recent selloffs in tech stocks, including a big slump earlier in April after Netflix earnings disappointed investors. With little visibility on how higher interest rates will ripple through the broader economy, fund managers say trading has been thin and prone to seesaw movements back and forth.

“Nothing goes down in a straight line and nothing goes up in a straight line,” said Michael Antonelli, managing director and market strategist at Baird. “You don’t need much to move the stock market when everyone is so pessimistic.”

While Thursday’s gains for Meta stocks and technology in general were substantial, they pale in comparison to the losses of the previous year. Meta stock remains down more than 40% so far this year, and the S&P 500 tech sector is down nearly 17% from its 2021 close. This month alone, Inflation fears, concerns about earnings growth and turbulence sent stocks overseas. tumbling. The S&P 500 is down 7.7% through Wednesday’s close, on track for its worst April since 1970, according to Dow Jones Market Data Group.

Stock market volatility hasn’t stayed at such a high level since the 2008 financial crisis, except for the onset of the pandemic, said John Roe, head of multi-asset funds at Legal & General Investment Management. . Bond volatility is the highest since the outright financial crisis, he added.

“I don’t think people have a lot of conviction,” he said. “This is a time when fundamental uncertainty is at a particularly high level.”

The American corporate world is in the throes of earnings season, and as profits and losses move individual stocks, analysts and traders say they are more concerned about the tenor of executives on earnings calls.

“What I want to hear in earnings reports is not whether you met or exceeded expectations, but what you see going forward,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Investco. She said so far this earnings season, comments from executives paint a picture that the challenges companies are facing could be protracted.

In individual stock moves on Thursday, shares of Twitter rose 1.9% after the social media company posted an increase in revenue and withdrew its financial guidance ahead of its acquisition by Elon Musk. Southwest Airlines rose 0.7% on expectations that the airline will turn a profit for the rest of the year.

Caterpillar shares fell 2.8% after the industry leader said margins fell in the first quarter. mcdonaldsit is

said earnings were higher than analysts expected, pushing shares up 3.4%.

Economically, the data showed the US economy contracted at an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter, its first contraction since the pandemic. Although the rate of decline is worrisome, some analysts have said they do not expect a recession given the underlying data. A major driver of the decline was the widening trade deficit, which meant the United States imported far more than it exported. Consumer spending also rose during the period, a slight acceleration from the end of last year.

The data could also play a role in the Federal Reserve’s decision on whether and how much to raise rates at its next meeting, scheduled for next week.

Investors will get a glimpse of how decades-high inflation — and the Fed’s response — are affecting consumer sentiment when Apple and Amazon release their quarterly results after the closing bell.

Foreign markets have recovered. The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.6% on strong earnings releases.

Chinese markets have recovered after falling on fears that shutdowns in major cities could slow growth in the world’s second-largest economy. The Shanghai Composite Index edged up 0.6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.7%.

The Nikkei 225 gained 1.7% after the Bank of Japan strengthened its commitment to keeping interest rates low despite rising inflation. The central bank said it would buy 10-year Japanese government bonds at a yield of 0.25% every business day to ensure the yield does not rise above that level.

The commitment to an accommodating monetary policy contrasts with the Fed’s position and has caused the yen to fall against the dollar. The Japanese currency fell to around 130.65 yen to the dollar, the weakest level since 2002. The offshore yuan weakened around 0.9%, with one dollar buying around 6.64 yuan.

The WSJ Dollar Index rose 0.8% to 95.94, near its highest level since March 2020, when the early spread of Covid-19 caused stress in global markets.

In commodities, European natural gas markets cooled after prices rose when Russia cut off supplies to two European Union members on Wednesday. Gas futures prices fell 7.7% to 99.15 euros, or $103.96, a megawatt hour.

Write to Joe Wallace at [email protected] and Quentin Webb at [email protected]