My goodness, I'm away for a couple days and the whole market falls apart.  I used to be a fan of Louis Rukeyser's "Wall Street Week" on PBS while he was still with us and it was a running joke for the many years his program ran that every time he went on vacation, the market would tank, and then immediately rally as soon as he got back in the office.  So today I'm feeling a little bit like old Lou, god rest his soul.

Monday was pretty much a wash though there was still over a 200 point swing in the day's trading.
But yesterday we got another bloodbath, triggered mostly by oil again as crude once again had a very bad day with the hopeful reports from Friday that Russia and OPEC would cooperate on cutting production being muted by much less hope, sending the Dow crashing down almost 300 points.  Today it was the reverse with the Russian foreign minister reinstating Friday's position that there may very well be a deal after all, and this once again sent the energy indexes soaring big time and the Dow up 183 points.  The irony was that this was despite the fact that crude inventories were reported to be still considerably higher than expected but I suppose investors consider overproduction in other countries to be a bigger problem than our own.  Trading was quite vigorous at 10.2 billion shares.

Note:  I'm having computer problems which are placing considerable restraints on my ability to gather this information and summarize here.  So I may have to take a little time off from this blog until I get this fixed.

Markets | Wed Feb 3, 2016 4:58pm EST

Dow, S&P 500 rally with energy; Nasdaq dips

REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID

DJ:  16,449.18  -17.12       NAS: 4,620.37  +7.11         S&P:  1,938.38  -0.86     2/1

DJ:  16,153.54  -295.64     NAS: 4,516.95  -103.42      S&P:  1,903.03  -35.35  2/2

DJ:  16,336.66  +183.12    NAS: 4,504.24  -12.71        S&P:  1,912.53  +9.50     2/3

U.S. stocks staged a late-day rally on Wednesday as an 8-percent jump in oil prices lifted beaten-down energy shares and financials rebounded.

The Nasdaq stayed weaker but ended well off the day's lows.

Oil prices snapped a two-day rout as after investors took advantage of a weaker U.S. dollar. Comments by Russia's foreign minister reignited hopes of a deal among oil producers to trim output.

The energy index .SPNY jumped 4 percent.

"Oil helped turn around the overall market. The market shot up like an arrow and then what you had was a lot of short covers," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth in New York.

The dollar's decline eased worries about the impact of dollar strength on U.S. multinationals' earnings. Shares of 3M Co. (MMM.N), up 3.1 percent at $152.52, led gains in the Dow.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI ended up 183.12 points, or 1.13 percent, to 16,336.66, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 9.5 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,912.53 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 12.71 points, or 0.28 percent, to 4,504.24.

Apple (AAPL.O), up 2 percent at $96.35, returned to its position as the world's most valuable company, pushing Alphabet (GOOGL.O) back into second place as the Internet giant's shares dropped 4 percent to $749.38.

The S&P materials .SPLRCM was up 3.3 percent, the day's second-best performing sector. The S&P financial index .SPSY ended down just 0.1 percent after hitting its lowest in more than two years.

Stocks' late-day rally reversed sharp losses in morning trading. U.S. data showed the economy's service sector expanded at a slower-than-expected rate, raising concerns that weakness in manufacturing was spreading to other areas of the economy.

In other economic news, ADP data showed private employers added more jobs than expected in January. The data comes ahead of the government's more comprehensive employment report on Friday.

Tepid U.S. growth, falling oil prices, and fears regarding a China-led global slowdown have combined to drive stocks down sharply since the start of the year.

About 10.2 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, above the 9.2 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE 1,920 to 1,102, for a 1.74-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,393 issues fell and 1,391 advanced for a 1.00-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 22 new 52-week highs and 56 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 16 new highs and 236 new lows.