Stocks closed higher Thursday, erasing steep losses from earlier in the day as strong gains in big-tech shares led to a sharp turnaround.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 188.27 points, or nearly 1% to 20,087.19. The S&P 500 was up 0.5% at 2,409.39 while the Nasdaq Composite outperformed with a 2.3% surge to 7,150.58. Shares of Netflix and Facebook rose 5.3% and 4.2%, respectively. Amazon gained 2.8%.

Earlier in the session, the Dow was down 721 points, or more than 3%. The S&P 500 briefly fell more than 3% as well.

"This is a day trader's market," said Christian Fromhertz, CEO of Tribeca Trade Group. "That's not my favorite type of trading, but the day-to-day swings and the overnight moves are pretty insane."

Among the industries trading in positive territory Thursday was energy, with the S&P sector up more than 6%. Big oil producers like Diamondback Energy and Apache rose more than 11% each as futures contracts tied to the price of West Texas Intermediate crude rallied 23%, its biggest one-day move ever.

The moves followed yet another volatile day on Wall Street. The Dow dropped 1,338.46 points, or 6.3%, on Wednesday and clinched its first close below 20,000 since February 2017.

"Markets are clearly in a state of panic and forced liquidations — but risks remain skewed to the upside and this should become much more apparent once some of the solvency issues are addressed," Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said in a note.

Wall Street has been on an unprecedented roller-coaster ride amid the coronavirus turmoil, with the S&P 500 swinging 4% or more in either direction for eight consecutive sessions prior to Thursday.