Stocks Continue Rally on Retail Data

Updated from 2:00 p.m. EDT

Stocks in the U.S. were off their peak for the session Thursday afternoon as crude-oil prices stormed higher, but the major indices nevertheless continued to trade well in positive territory amid otherwise good news from various slices of the corporate world.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 109 points, or 0.9%, to 12,500, with especially strong support from Verizon (VZ Quote) and Wal-Mart (WMT Quote). The S&P 500 advanced 14 points at 1396, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 25 points to 2528, as both indices moved up roughly 1%.

Still, said Fred Dickson, senior vice president and market strategist with D.A. Davidson, "Really, we still don't see a lot of conviction at this point. It's been a yin-and-yang sort of market. The big-money investors are sitting on the sidelines, slowly nibbling away on the buy side, and then we see short-term profit-taking."

"Our guess is that the underlying trend is up," he continued, "but this is a period of low market conviction and high volatility, and it'll probably stay that way at least until the second-quarter earnings season, or the next [Federal Reserve] meeting."

The Fed is next scheduled to convene June 24 and 25.

Meanwhile, Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist with Delta Global Advisors, is looking ahead to second-quarter numbers on U.S. gross domestic product, which he believes will be more important than first-quarter data. "It will either confirm that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that the economy is beginning to crawl back, or refute that theory."