Stocks gain for a third day this week

NEW YORK - The stock market is notching its third big gain this week as the price of oil recovers and investors applaud a big acquisition in the pharmaceutical industry.

Energy stocks rose Thursday as crude oil gained 4 percent.

Hospira soared 35 percent after the drugmaker agreed to be acquired by Pfizer for $16 billion.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 211 points, or 1.2 percent, to 17,884.

The Standard & Poor's 500 rose 21 points, or 1 percent, to 2,062. The Nasdaq composite rose 48 points, or 1 percent, to 4,765. The gains put the Dow and the S&P 500 back in the black for 2015.

Crude oil rose 4 percent to close at $50.48 a barrel.

Few investors or analysts believe oil's wild ride is ending any time soon. While data earlier this week showed U.S. production is slowing down -- thereby putting a floor on oil prices -- this week's crude oil inventory levels tells a different story.

"We're starting to see some production shifts, but it's happening slowly," said Gabriela Santos, a global market strategist with JPMorgan Funds. "Oil is going to keep making these big swings until something is done to deal with all this oversupply."

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.81 percent.

In Europe, Greek stocks dropped as tensions between the country's new left-wing government and the European Central Bank intensified.

Greece's new left-wing government is insisting it will stick to its anti-austerity agenda, hours after the European Central Bank tightened the screws on Athens by withdrawing a key borrowing option for the country's banks.