Stock Market Gains after Falling Off a Cliff on Tuesday

The stock market showed tentative signs of recovery yesterday, recouping some of its losses after suffering its steepest drop in nearly four years on Tuesday.

Most international markets traded off sharply today for a second day, with losses of 2 percent or more in many major Asian bourses and 1 percent declines common in Europe. But the New York Stock Exchange began advancing from the opening bell at 9:30.

The gains were small and a bit fleeting at first. But by the afternoon both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks were solidly in positive territory, with gains of about half a percentage point.

The broad global sell-off of stocks on Tuesday wiped out all the gains the Dow and the S&P had made for the year. By the end of the trading day, the two indexes stood about where they had been at the end of November, with the Dow surrendering 416 points, or about 3.3 percent of its value. Today’s advances had restored about 70 of those points by midday.

The NASDAQ composite index, heavy with technology stocks, fell even harder than the Dow on Tuesday and opened weakly today, but by late morning it too was well into the plus column.

The apparent trigger for the global slump on Tuesday was a spectacular 9-percent fall in mainland China’s two major bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Both rebounded sharply today, rising nearly 4 percent today after state-controlled media reported that the government might allow greater foreign investment in Chinese stocks and would not impose capital gains taxes on stocks soon.