Wall Street clings to early gains despite dismal PMI data

• Energy shares continue to lead top-gainers for second straight day.
• Recovering oil prices keep the market mood upbeat on Thursday.

Wall Street's main indexes started the day in the positive territory on Thursday supported by rising energy shares on recovering crude oil prices. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.65% on the day while the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 were gaining 0.8% and 0.75%, respectively.

Markets ignore US data

Boosted by a 20% daily increase in the price of WTI, the S&P 500 Energy Index is up 2.35% as the top-performing major S&P 500 sector. The Industrials Index is rising 1.6% and the Materials Index is gaining 1.35%.

Meanwhile, the IHS Markit's Manufacturing PMI in April dropped to 36.9 (preliminary) from 48.5 but had little to no impact on the market sentiment. Other data from the US showed that there Initial Jobless Claims in the week ending April 18th were 4.4 million, lower than the previous week's reading of 5.2 million.