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New York - US stocks pushed higher on Thursday as oil prices cooled and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba soared on strong sales.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 82.08 points to 17 924.06.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 7.85 points at 2 088.00, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 25.90 points to 4 945.54.
US crude prices fell back below $60 a barrel on Thursday. Spiking oil prices contributed to a 1.6% loss in the S&P 500 in the prior two sessions.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities, said a drop in US Treasury bond yields also eased worries.
"If you look at some of the turmoil you saw in the market during the last few days, a couple of factors have settled down," Hogan said.
Alibaba jumped 7.5% as sales rose 45% to $2.81bn in the quarter ending March 31. The company named chief operating officer Daniel Zhang as chief executive, replacing Jonathan Lu.
Yahoo, which has a stake in Alibaba, rose 5.3%.
Online listings and review site Yelp surged 23% on reports it enlisted investment bankers to approach potential buyers of the company.
Tesla Motors gained 2.8% as it said it was on track to deliver 55 000 cars this year, even as it reported a loss of $154.2m for the quarter ending March 31.
Whole Foods Market sank 9.7% on worries about slowing sales after second-quarter earnings rose 11.3% to $158m. Comparable store sales came in 3.6% higher, below the 5.2% growth expected, said Jefferies.
Online travel site Priceline fell 4.0% after it warned that the strong dollar would "significantly reduce" earnings in the second quarter.
Twenty-First Century Fox lost 2.7% as net income for the quarter ending March 31 fell 7% to $975m. The year-ago results were boosted by the 2014 Super Bowl broadcast. The American football game was not broadcast on Fox this year.
Oil-linked stocks fell. Dow member ExxonMobil shed 0.7%, while oil services titan Halliburton lost 2.8%.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 2.18% from 2.24% on Wednesday night, while the 30-year dropped to 2.91% from 2.99%. Bond prices and yields move inversely.
