Stocks Bounce Back; Banks Skid

Stocks bounced back from the prior session's slide, led by techs and materials, as techs staged a rebound and materials benefited from higher metal prices. Better-than-expected retail sales also buoyed the market.

Financials declined after federal regulators proposed increased oversight of investment banks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up more than 52 points, or 0.4 percent, at 12866.78. The Nasdaq gained 0.5 percent and the S&P 500 index added 0.4 percent.

This came after the prior session's sell-off, in which the Dow shed more than 200 points, led by financials, after comments from the SEC chairman rattled a market already depressed by crude oil's jump above $123 a barrel. Crude settled Thursday at $123.69 a a barrel.

Gold prices climbed $11, or 1.4 percent, to close at $880.60 a troy ounce. Shares of materials companies advanced 2.3 percent, with aluminum company Alcoa , the top gainer on the Dow, up 4.1 percent.

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve and FTC proposed rules that would require lenders to inform and better explain to consumers when they are being offered less favorable terms before the consumer gets locked into a contract.

Financial stocks dropped 1.2 percent, making them the biggest decliner among 10 key S&P sector indexes. Bank of America skidded 1.8 percent, while Morgan Stanley finished off 1.6 percent.

UBS tumbled 3.1 percent amid news that the Swiss company's private bank is under investigation in the U.S. for tax evasion.

Technology shares rose, with the S&P IT-sector index up 0.6 percent, after Merrill Lynch's chief investment strategist, Richard Bernstein, told CNBC that some of the bigger capitalization tech stocks offer good values and are under owned. Intel rose 1 percent and Apple gained 1.4 percent.

In economic news, initial jobless claims fell by 18,000 to 365,000 last week; economists had expected a flat reading. The four-week moving average, however, ticked up by 2,500 to 367,000. Separately, wholesale inventories fell by 0.1 percent in March, the first drop since December 2006, while sales jumped 1.6 percent.

Stocks had opened the day higher after solid April sales reports from Wal-Mart and other retailers.

Wal-Mart reported its same-store sales, excluding fuel, rose 3.2 percent in April, more than analysts had expected.

Wholesalers Costco also beat expectations with an 8 percent rise, as did rival BJ's Wholesale , which posted a 12-percent increase excluding gasoline.

Teen retailers continued to fare well as teens don't have to deal with gasoline or food prices. Abercrombie & Fitch's same-store sales jumped 6 percent, and American Eagle's rose 2 percent. Interestingly, Aeropostale , whose clothing is about 30 percent cheaper than its rivals, saw same-store sales soar 25 percent.

Shares of Crocs shot up Thursday after the shoe maker posted a quarterly loss, hurt by a charge for the closure of a Canadian factory, but backed a 2008 outlook that was better than analysts had expected. Analysts expressed some concern about the company's ability to post plump margins.

Departments stores and specialty stores all reported declines in same-store sales and even Wal-Mart's CEO said consumers are increasingly having a hard time stretching their dollars. "As money gets tighter for them toward the end of the month, sales drop more than we have seen in the past," CEO Eduardo Castro-Wright said in statement Thursday.

"I think the month of April will be one of the stronger numbers you see, and I think it'll level out after that," Dana Telsey, chief research officer at the Telsey Advisory Group, told CNBC. "I think the consumers are strapped," she said. "I think that their wallets are definitely tighter this year than last year."

Some traders noted that cash-strapped consumer are increasingly turning to their credit cards.

"That spike yesterday afternoon in consumer credit was just dazzling," Art Cashin, head of floor operations at UBS, told CNBC, referring to the Federal Reserve report that showed consumer credit jumped to $15.29 billion in March, more than triple of what was expected. "Well over $6 billion of that was credit cards, which, I think, underscores my hypothesis that people are  buying milk, bread and gasoline on a credit card -- it's their last lifeline to reality," Cashin said.

"The people who are at the sorry end of the stick apparently have decided, 'It takes you six months to foreclose on my house -- I’ll keep using my credit card and keep that current, maybe something good will happen in the next six months and I’ll catch up," Cashin said. It's their "point of survival."

Ford shares rose 3 percent after the auto maker's CEO said he sees Ford's turnaround gaining traction despite challenging North American conditions.