Stocks traded higher for most of the day with the major indices retreating during mid-afternoon trading and putting a point on the day with an uptick in the last hour of trading.

In late day trading traders were in part reacting to a new report from the U.S. Federal Reserve reporting that all but one of the Fed's 12 regions indicating that economic activity had stabilized. The one outlier was the St. Louis region reporting that the pace of decline was moderating, but there was still a decline in activity. 

The Dow closed at 9,547, up almost 50 points; the Nasdaq finished at 2,060, up 22 points; and the S&P 500 ended the day at 1,033, up 8 points.

The Russell 2000, a composite of the top 2,000 small capitalization stocks and a leading indicator of market recovery, finished up 10 points at 587.

Advances lead declines by a ratio of about 2 to 1 across the major markets.

Small-cap leaders trading over 1 million shares today include...

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