NEW YORK (AP) - Encouraging news from overseas pushed the U.S. market higher on Thursday, helping stocks recover some of the ground they lost a day earlier.
In China, frantic efforts by authorities to stop a monthlong rout in the country's stock market met with some success. The Shanghai Composite surged after opening sharply lower.
U.S. investors have become concerned that the selloff there would start to hurt growth in the world's second-biggest economy.
In Europe, stocks soared on speculation that last-ditch talks between Greece and its creditors would produce an agreement, preventing a possible Greek debt default.
Those problems, and the fear that they could hurt the global economy, have pushed down the U.S. stock market in recent weeks.
In the U.S., the Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 4.63 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,051.31. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 33.20 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,548.62. The Nasdaq composite rose 12.64 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,922.40.
Stocks surged at the open, pushing the S&P 500 index nearly 30 points in early trading. Those gains faded throughout the day, in part because the early euphoria over the Chinese stock market proved short-lived, said Randy Frederick, a managing director at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.