NEW YORK — Investors put aside concerns about rising oil prices yesterday, helping the market to a late-day rally focused on generally positive economic news.

The major stock indexes gained ground during the final two hours of the trading session, even after the price of oil momentarily crossed $66 a barrel. It finished at a record high close of $65.80 a barrel, up 90 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"I think in the end people want to be bullish," said Doug Sandler, chief equity strategist at Wachovia Securities in Richmond, Va. "Some of that is a trend building on a trend — the market starts to go one way and everybody seems to jump on it."

But the ups and downs in stock prices seen yesterday, following a selloff Wednesday, reflect persistent worries by investors that, despite strong corporate earnings and upbeat economic reports, oil prices will eventually exact a toll.

"Ordinarily you would expect the stock market to rise or do better, but it's not, and I think the reason it's not is it's being held in check by high oil prices," said Hugh Johnson, chairman and chief investment officer of Johnson Illington Advisors in Albany, N.Y.

Broader stock indicators also closed higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 8.68, or 0.71 percent, to 1,237.81, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 16.74, or 0.78 percent, to 2,174.55.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a more than 2-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange, where preliminary consolidated volume came to 1.93 billion shares, compared with 2.29 billion shares on Wednesday.