NEW YORK (AP) - New twists in the Greek debt crisis led to a choppy day of trading on Tuesday, as a late turn left the stock market with a modest gain.
Greece and its creditors held talks in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how to keep the country from falling out of the euro. Reports out late in the day said European officials considered providing Greece with emergency funding to help it avoid defaulting on its debts.
Major indexes drifted lower in early trading, then dropped further around midday, pushing the Standard & Poor's 500 index below a technical level watched by many traders, the index's average over the past 200 days. To many in the market it was a signal that stocks had fallen too far, so they jumped back in.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 12.58 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,081.34.
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 93.33 points, or 0.5 percent, to 17,776.91, while the Nasdaq composite inched up 5.52 points, or 0.1 percent, to 4,997.46.