NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks rallied Thursday as the Swiss National Bank came to the rescue of Credit Suisse, and the European Central Bank hiked interest rates by 50 basis points, underpinning global bank shares, at least for now.

"The euro area banking sector is resilient, with strong capital and liquidity positions," the ECB said in a statement Thursday.

Credit Suisse shares, which had dropped 30 percent at one point a day earlier, surged 18.80 percent.

Domestically, First Republic Bank was reported to be in talks with major U.S. banks to shore up the beleaguered lender.

"Banks are looking out for one another," Huntington Private Bank chief investment officer, John Augustine told Reuters news agency Thursday.

"We had two outliers go down and now they want to save what is considered a more mainstream bank."

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite did best, surging 283.22 points Thursday to close at 11,717.28, a gain of 2.48 percent.

The Dow Jones industrials rallied 371.98 points or 1.17 percent to 32,246.55.

The Standard and Poor's 500 added 68.35 points or 1.76 percent to 3,960.28.

On Thursday, the foreign exchange market saw some positive movement in the currency pairs involving the U.S. dollar. The Euro/U.S. dollar pair (EUR/USD) closed at 1.0614, up by 0.36 percent, or 0.00383 points. The Japanese yen pair (USD/JPY) closed at 133.51, up by 0.11 percent, or 0.144 points.

However, the U.S. dollar/Canadian dollar pair (USD/CAD) closed at 1.3725, down by 0.30 percent, or 0.00409 points. The British pound gained to 1.2116, up by 0.51 percent, or 0.00612 points. The Swiss franc pair (USD/CHF) closed at 0.9299, retreating 0.30 percent, or 0.00281 points.

The Australian dollar closed at 0.6655, up by 0.57 percent, or 0.00374 points. The New Zealand dollar finished Thursday around 0.6189, ahead by 0.03 percent.

Global stock markets closed with mixed results on Thursday.

The STOXX50E index in Europe gained 2.03 percent, while the ESTX 50 PR.EUR in the Eurozone increased by 1.70 percent. The BEL 20 in Belgium rose by 0.62 percent.

However, the MOEX Russia Index, the Nikkei 225 in Japan, the HANG SENG INDEX in Hong Kong, and the SSE Composite Index in China lost 0.19 percent, 0.80 percent, 1.72 percent, and 1.12 percent respectively.

The CAC 40 in France was one of the top performers of the day, increasing by 2.03 percent. The DAX PERFORMANCE-INDEX in Germany also gained 1.57 percent.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index fell by 1.46 percent. The STI Index in Singapore and the ALL ORDINARIES in Australia also closed lower, down 0.55 percent and 1.52 percent respectively.

The S&P BSE SENSEX in India increased by 0.14 percent Thursday, while the IDX Composite in Indonesia fell by 0.94 percent. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI in Malaysia also lost 0.88 percent.

Finally, the S&P/NZX 50 INDEX GROSS in New Zealand gained 0.70 percent, and the KOSPI Composite Index in South Korea saw a slight decrease of 0.08 percent.