S&P, Dow rise as industrial, consumer stocks gain

By Tanya Agrawal and Sruthi Shankar

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks overturned early losses to trade broadly higher on Wednesday as some buyers returned to a market still shaking from a record fall for the Dow Jones Industrial Average earlier this week.

Falls for major technology stocks kept the tech-heavy Nasdaq just 0.1 percent in the red, but the Dow and the S&P 500 both recovered from premarket falls of up to 1 percent to trade around half a percent higher.

"It looks like a little bit of a stabilization trade overnight," said John Brady, senior vice president at futures brokerage R.J. O'Brien & Associates in Chicago. "I don't know if it's over, but a market range may be established."

By 9:42 a.m. ET (1442 GMT), the Dow was up 127.27 points, or 0.51 percent, at 25,040.04. The S&P 500 rose 11.5 points, or 0.43 percent, to 2,706.64 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 10.5 points at 7,102.62.

Gains in industrial and consumer discretionary stocks led advances on the S&P and the Dow.

A wild session on Tuesday had seen the Dow swing more than 1,100 points from peak to trough and ended with the benchmark S&P 500 recording its best day since just before President Donald Trump's election in 2016.

Traders are still braced for more volatility as they try to figure out if the swings of the past week are the start of a deeper correction or just a temporary blip in the U.S. market's nine-year bull run.

The pivotal gauge of S&P 500 volatility, the VIX, opened at a relatively elevated 31 points and was at 24.91 just after the opening bell in New York. The VIX on Tuesday hit a more than two-and-a-half year high above 50, after trading, on average, below 20 for months.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal and Sruthi Shankar; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Patrick Graham)