Dow up 200-plus as oil rallies above $32

Wall Street stocks scored a second day of gains Friday after a steep sell-off earlier in the week as oil prices bounced sharply higher and investors bank on further stimulus measures from global central banks helping to offset some of the financial pain felt early in 2016.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 211 points, or 1.3%, to 16,094, building on Thursday's 116-point gain. The two days of gains trimmed the Dow's year-to-date loss to 7.6%. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 2.0% and the Nasdaq composite surged 2.7%. It was the first time this year that the benchmark S&P 500 was in the green for the entire trading day, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

Even after the week-ending rebound, all three U.S. stock indexes remain in correction territory, defined as a drop of 10% or more from recent highs.

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Powering Day 2 of the rebound was a big rally in the oil patch, where a barrel of U.S.-produced crude was up more than 8% and back above $32 a barrel. Plunging crude prices, of course, have weighed on stocks this year, as it has raised fears of a coming global slowdown and worries that bankruptcies and upheaval in the oil sector would exacerbate financial tumult.

The stock rally was jump-started Thursday when the European Central Bank strongly hinted that more stimulus would be forthcoming at its March meeting. That news raised hopes that central bankers around the world would do what they can to offset some of the massive volatility that has engulfed markets so far in 2016. Many critics, however, blame all the stimulus from the world's central banks over the past few years for overinflating asset values and setting the market for a comeuppance, which they say we are starting to see now.

"Expectations of further central bank easing have helped restore investor confidence in risky assets," Barclays' analyst Henry Skeoch told clients in a note. Skeoch added that reports that the Bank of Japan is "mulling further easings" sparked a nearly 6% rally Friday in the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index in Japan.

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Still, chart watchers on Wall Street acknowledge that the U.S. stock market has suffered a lot of so-called "technical damage," and that there's been no clear evidence -- at least not yet -- that a major improvement in the market is developing.

Stocks were trading up around the globe to end the week. Stocks in Hong Kong closed nearly 3% higher and shares in mainland China rose 1.3%.

The gains spread to Europe, which again shot higher on hopes of more stimulus from the ECB. The broad Stoxx Europe 600 index was 3.2% higher and shares in Germany were up more than 2%, with gains of 3.5% for the CAC 40 in Paris.

Adam Shell on Twitter: @adamshell.