Investing.com - Beaten-down individual stocks continued to benefit from a low-volume August week, with Twitter climbing sharply midday.
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) enjoyed solid gains Monday, and Twitter, another stock hammered following its latest earnings report, saw lots of buyers coming in today.
Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) stock rose about 3.5% at 11:30 AM ET (15:30 GMT).
Shares of Twitter dived when its reported a surprise decline in monthly active users in July. But since then, the stock has been steadily gaining a little ground, despite being mired in the controversy of the company trying to police fake news and hate speech and facing charges of censorship.
Chartists will be looking to see if today’s strong move can hold.
Among other social media stocks, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) rose about 0.3%, while Snap (NYSE:SNAP) fell about 3%.
Elsewhere, energy stocks were higher as oil prices gained. Crude oil WTI futures climbed as traders continued to fret about a drop in supply when U.S. sanctions against Iran go into effect in November.
The S&P Energy Sector index gained about 1%.
Among the strongest components in the index were National Oilwell Varco (NYSE:NOV), up about 2.6%, Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC), which rose about 2%, and Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN), which gained about 2%.