Rising oil prices helped pull Canadian markets into the black Thursday, while U.S. markets got a late-day boost from a solid earnings report from a big tech stock.

At close, the S&P/TSX was up 9.81 points or 0.11% to 9013.55, after being down more than a dozen points at noon. The TSX Venture exchange gained 16.58 points or 0.99% to 1697.88.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrials recovered from an approximate 75-point decline and finished up 58.59 points, or 0.56% to 10552.82. The Nasdaq edged up 2.90 points or 0.14% at 2129.01 and the S&P 500 added 6.43 points or 0.54% at 1189.24.

The Canadian dollar was down 0.31 of a cent in late trading to US81.93¢.

Oil prices rose for the second day in a row on Thursday as several OPEC ministers called for the cartel to stop producing more oil than its official target to prevent a glut next year. U.S. light crude CLc1 rose 59¢ to US$42.53 a barrel after touching a four-month low at $40.45 on Wednesday. London’s Brent crude LCOc1 rose 98¢ to US$39.67 a barrel.

That helped push Toronto markets. The TSX energy sub-group added 0.90%, but other influential groups were up as well — gold issues increased 1.52% and tech stocks gained 0.36%. Six of the TSX sub-groups declined, lead by financials, which were off 0.49%.

Among the most active advancing stocks were Nortel Networks Corp, which added 2.4%; Barrick Gold Corp., up 2.17%; and CP Ships Ltd., which gained 9.2%. Big decliners included Wheat River Minerals Ltd., down 0.74% and Bank of Nova Scotia, off 1.04%.

In New York, the market gained strength in the final hour of trade Thursday, bolstered by a better-than-expected earnings report from National Semiconductor that helped take the sting out of earlier cautious comments from Xilinx and Altera.

Overnight, Xilinx and Altera, the two largest manufacturers of programmable chips, cut their sales outlooks, rekindling worries about bloated inventories in the semiconductor industry. Texas Instruments had narrowed its financial targets on Tuesday.

National Semiconductor climbed 4.9% after falling as much as fell 6.6% after it posted fiscal second-quarter earnings of US18¢ cents a share, excluding charges, besting analyst expectations for earnings of US14¢ a share for the period.

By sector, semiconductors remained the worst performers while oil services posted the loftiest gains.