Oil prices rise after some steep declines, and stocks hold steady

U.S. stock indexes held steady Thursday after the price of oil halted its slide, at least for now.

Energy stocks fell again, but not by nearly as much as earlier in the week, after crude rose for the first time in four days. Big gains for healthcare stocks also helped offset losses for financial companies and other areas of the market, leaving indexes close to flat.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged down 1.11 points, or less than 0.1%, to 2,434.50. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 12.74, or 0.1%, to 21,397.29, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 2.73 points, or less than 0.1%, to 6,236.69.

Markets this week have been dominated by oil’s tumbling price and worries about how much that drop will affect the broader market. On Thursday, benchmark U.S. crude rose 21 cents to settle at $42.74 a barrel, and Brent crude, the international standard, rose 40 cents to $45.22 a barrel. That was a big shift in momentum compared with earlier in the week, when oil dropped to its lowest level since August on expectations that supplies will exceed demand.

Energy stocks in the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% — a much milder drop than the previous two days, when they fell at least 1.2%.

Helping to support indexes were healthcare stocks, which have been climbing this week even as the rest of the market struggled. Healthcare stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 1.1%, by far the biggest gain among the 11 sectors that make up the index, after the Senate unveiled its proposal to revamp how Americans get medical care. The sector is up 3.7% for the week; meanwhile, the overall index is up just 0.1%.

Envision Healthcare, which provides physician and ambulance services, went up 3.5% to $60.30. HCA Healthcare, which owns hospitals around the country, rose 2.5% to $86.14, and biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences climbed 4.4% to $70.48.

Trovagene soared 37.4% to $1.30 after the San Diego developer of diagnostic technology announced a deal with an unnamed “premier biopharmaceutical company” to provide its Trovera liquid biopsy tests for use in clinical trials.

Expectations used to be high that big changes coming out of Washington, such as lower tax rates, would help businesses make bigger profits and markets to rise higher. That feeling has ebbed.

“Expectations have gotten so low, as far as what’s going to come out of this administration,” said Jon Adams, senior investment strategist at BMO Global Asset Management. “Most think some kind of health reform will get done, but tax reform is a coin flip, and the expectation is it will be very, very modest if it does get through.”

The stock market has remained resilient, but the “Trump bump” has faded for other areas as expectations have waned. Interest rates have dropped, and small-cap stocks are lagging behind their larger rivals, for example.

But that means if a big tax-reform package and other pro-business policies do happen, it could mean big gains for markets that don’t see them coming, Adams said.

Thursday’s biggest gainer in the S&P 500 was Oracle, which jumped 8.6% to $50.30 after reporting stronger revenue and earnings for its latest quarter than analysts expected. Technology companies are expected to report some of the strongest earnings growth for the April-through-June quarter, one of the reasons that their stocks have been leading the market this year.

On the opposite end was Accenture, which fell 4% to $122.08. The consulting firm posted quarterly earnings that were in line with analysts’ expectations, but it also trimmed the top end of its forecast for revenue growth this year, when taking into account changes in foreign-currency values.

The 10-year Treasury yield held steady at 2.15%, while the two-year yield fell to 1.34% from 1.35%, and the 30-year yield fell to 2.72% from 2.73%.

The euro fell to $1.1147 from $1.1167. The dollar held steady at 111.34 Japanese yen.

In overseas stock markets, the French CAC 40 rose 0.1%, the German DAX rose 0.2% and the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.1%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 0.1%.

Gold rose $3.60 to $1,249.40 an ounce, silver rose 14 cents to $16.51 an ounce and copper was flat at $2.60 per pound.

Natural gas was close to flat at $2.89 per 1,000 cubic feet. Heating oil rose 1 cent to $1.37 a gallon. Wholesale gasoline rose 2 cents to $1.43 a gallon.

UPDATES:

2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with closing prices, context and analyst comment.

This article was originally published at 8:05 a.m.