Wall Street Ends Higher In Late-Session Rally

Wall Street bounced back from a steep sell-off late in the session to close higher on Monday, with bargain hunters pushing the indexes into positive territory by closing bell, Stephen Culp reported for Reuters on Jan. 25, 2022.

Photo Insert: "Fearless Girl" watches over the New York Stock Exchange

The S&P 500 earlier came close to confirming a correction by appearing on track to close more than 10% down from its most recent all-time high reached on Jan. 3 as investors focused on concerns about an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve and geopolitical tensions.

The S&P 500 recovered 4.3 percentage points from its session low to it closing level, the largest such swing since March 26, 2020, when Wall Street was bouncing back from the global slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier in the day, the indices were all more than 2% lower.

The S&P appeared to be on course to confirm a correction, and the Russell 2000 looked as if it would confirm it was in a bear market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 99.13 points, or 0.29%, to 34,364.5, the S&P 500 gained 12.19 points, or 0.28%, to 4,410.13 and the Nasdaq Composite added 86.21 points, or 0.63%, to 13,855.13.

This abrupt, late-session U-turn came in the wake of S&P 500 and the Nasdaq suffering their largest weekly percentage plunge since March 2020, when shutdowns to contain the pandemic sent the economy spiraling into its steepest and most abrupt recession on record.

"Correction territory is often a psychological sweet spot for investors. They see the correction, and they see that it's a healthy part of the markets," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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