Stock Market Today: After Christmas Eve Downturn, Wall Street Rebounds With Huge Gains Wednesday

After a sharp downturn in recent months, the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday soared to a record 1,086.25 points, or 4.98 percent, to close at 22,878.45, while the Nasdaq gained 5.84 percent and S&P jumped 4.96 percent, marking the biggest percentage gain for all three indices since March 2009.

The previous one-day record-point gain for the Dow was 936.42 on Oct. 13, 2008.

The markets may have been helped by data from MasterCard that showed sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24 were up 5.1 percent, the strongest growth in six years.

The big Wall Street rebound came after the worst-ever Christmas Eve, which saw the Dow plummet 650 points. The major indexes are still down more than 10 percent in December.

Stocks fell Monday following an unusual press release on Sunday evening from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claiming he contacted the CEOs of the country's six largest banks to assure them that markets had enough liquidity for lending, which prompted worries about a looming financial crisis.

The market bounced back late Monday morning but then slid again after President Donald Trump posted a message on Twitter that the country's only economic problem is the Federal Reserve. The comments came amid reports that Trump has considered firing chair Jerome Powell and while the country was in a government shutdown.

UBS economist Rob Martin told CNBC that tariffs and the Fed are currently the two biggest obstacles to the market and expressed optimism.

"The good news is, if we're right here and it's just tariffs, then it's a short-lived temporary shock to the economy and we should see better numbers later next year," Martin said. "You get into the second half of the year, and the underlying bones of the economy and growth picks back up."