Stocks celebrate bull's 7th birthday with modest gains

On a day the Dow and Wall Street celebrated the bull market's seventh birthday, oil prices rebounded and U.S. stocks finished slightly higher after a down day Tuesday that snapped a five-session winning streak.

Climbing a slight 0.2% was the Dow Jones industrial average, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite logged gains of 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.

The bullish trend that has been in place since the February 11 stock market bottom is hoping to continue today as investors latch on to recent data that has debunked the notion that the U.S. is headed for an imminent recession and lessened fears of aggressive interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve.

Aging bull set to celebrate 7th birthday

Wednesday marked a big milestone for Wall Street. The current bull market, which was born March 9, 2009, during the tail-end of the Great Recession, turns 7 today. The benchmark U.S. stock market, which closed Tuesday at 1979.26, notched its last record close of 2130.82 on May 21, 2015.

At its bull market peak it was up 215%, driven in large part by central bank stimulus that propelled the economy out of recession and made stocks an attractive alternative to lower-yielding fixed-income securities.

The current S&P 500 bull market is the third-longest in history and is ranked No. 5 in performance. A  bull market is defined as a 20% rise from a low without a 20% drop, or  bear market, along the way.

According to historians and Wall Street statisticians, the bull market, which kicks off its eighth year today, will have to make another record high for it to go down as a seven year bull. The reason. If the S&P 500 does suffer a 20% drop before hitting a fresh record, the end date for this bull will revert back to May 21, 2015, when it hit its highest close during the run.

Wednesday, Wall Street pros will be looking ahead to a key meeting of the European Central Bank tomorrow. Investors expect the ECB deliver on its promises to deliver more stimulus to help counterract weak growth and tepid inflation in the eurozone. The ECB is also expected to push interest rates deeper into negative territory.

Stocks in Europe were rebounding Wednesday after losing ground Tuesday. The broad Stoxx Europe 600 was up 1.1%.

Shares were lower in Asia, with stocks in Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China all closing lower.

Adam Shell on Twitter: @adamshell.