Stocks stage big swing, end 5-day down streak

The Dow turned a nearly 170-point loss into a 93-point gain Thursday despite growing angst related to next week's Brexit vote in the U.K., rising confusion over central bank policy and sagging economic growth around the globe.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 0.5% at 17,733 Thursday as the stock market snapped back from a five-session losing streak. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2%

Angst and uncertainty have been on the rise on Wall Street, a day after the Federal Reserve left short-term rates unchanged Wednesday and dialed back its outlook for future interest rate hikes. Fed chief Janet Yellen cited increasing "uncertaintities" related to the pace of U.S. economic growth and next Thursday's vote in the United Kingdom on whether it should stay in or leave the European Union.

Another day of falling prices in the oil patch also hurt sentiment. A barrel of U.S.-produced crude tumbled more than 4.0% to about $46, after recently topping the $52 per barrel mark.

The primary source of angst has shifted to Great Britain, where polls that show the odds of a possible exit from the EU are rising have caught global investors by surprise, as the majority of investors did not see an exit as a real possibility just a few weeks ago.

Jason Trennert, co-founder of Strategas Research Partners, says that with Brexit a week away, the vote to stay or go is dominating financial market talk and has caused investor sentiment to get "frenzied."

"The term Brexit was mentioned more than 700 times in Bloomberg news articles yesterday and it dominated the discussions in our meetings," Trennert noted in an e-mail.

Now, the world's top central bankers from Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. are all warning that a Brexit could damage investor sentiment and cause economic damage. Earlier today, both the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged and offered little in the form of new stimulus measures. The lack of a move by the BoJ was viewed as a negative by stock investors in Japan, where the benchmark Nikkei 225 fell more than 3%.The decision not to deliver more stimulus pushed the Japanese yen up nearly 2% vs. the U.S. dollar and to levels not seen in almost two years.

Stocks were also lower across the board in Europe, with the broad Stoxx Europe 600 index off 1%.

Money continued to pile into the perceived safety of government bonds around the globe. The yield on the 10-year German government bond earlier Thursday hit a fresh record-low yield of -0.033%. And the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note slid to 1.58%, which pushed it further into territory last seen in late 2012.

"Yields are at new lows," says Trennert.