Wall Street advanced modestly on Wednesday after a sharp rise in oil prices boosted energy shares, while better-than-anticipated data on the labor market helped financial stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 41.23 points, or 0.23 percent, to 18,355, the S&P 500 gained 6.75 points, or 0.31 percent, to 2,163.78 and the Nasdaq Composite added 22.01 points, or 0.43 percent, to 5,159.74.