How the Dow Jones industrial average fared on Wednesday

After rallying more than 200 points Tuesday, following a gain of more than 300 points last Friday before the three-day weekend, the blue-chip stock gauge will look to continue its comeback with another day of gains.

The Nasdaq is down 473.35 points, or 9.5 percent.

Wall Street closed up on Wednesday, led by energy shares, with the S&P 500 and the Dow logging their first three-day run of gains for the year.

Growth-oriented technology stocks had a good day, with Amazon climbing 2.5 percent, Facebook 3.5 percent and Netflix 6.4 percent.

The steep slide in oil, whose performance has been tightly tied to the stock market, along with fears of a China-led slowdown in global growth have rattled markets.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.20% to 16,486.81 while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were 0.05% and 0.12% higher respectively.

Elsewhere, oil prices rallied after Iran offered its support to the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Russian Federation, under which the two countries said they would commit to freeze production if other producers followed suit.

Market sentiment, obviously, would get a major boost if the Dow and the other major USA stock indexes could mount a recovery from what has been a very hard, very volatile and very trying time for investors.

“It’s too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, but we think the data are consistent with the idea that the underlying trend in claims is more or less steady in the low 270,000s”, said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Priceline closed 11.2 percent higher at $1,235.56 after the travel websites operator’s profit beat expectations.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,562 to 528, for a 4.85-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 2,057 issues rose and 768 fell for a 2.68-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.