Dow soars 350 points as wild ride on Wall Street continues

Stocks rose in choppy trade Wednesday as Wall Street tried to build on the strong gains set in the previous session.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 300 points after opening 127 points lower. Boeing and Walmart were the best-performing stocks in the index, rising more than 3 percent.

The S&P 500 rose 1.2 percent, with telecommunications and industrials as the best-performing sector. The Nasdaq composite traded 0.8 percent higher.

Futures fell sharply before the open, with the Dow tipped to open 300 points lower at one point.

The latest moves come after three volatile sessions in which fear of rising inflation sent interest rates higher, pressuring equities. Traders also blamed computerized trading and sharp moves in obscure volatility funds that use leverage for the market's recent swings.

"I think this bull market is basically in the process of forming a top," Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday. "This is the first crack of it."

"Bull-market tops tend to be a process, not an event," he said. "The reason why this is likely to play out this year is the trifecta which has been driving global stocks over the last 12-to-18 months as a big tailwind is now bound to turn into a headwind." The trifecta Sharma refers to is better-than-expected global growth, weaker-than-expected inflation and loose monetary policy.

On Friday, the Dow and S&P 500 capped off their worst weekly performance in two years after a stronger-than-expected jobs report sent interest rates higher. The decline on Wall Street picked up steam on Monday, with the Dow plummeting 1,175 points as investors rushed for the exits in the wake of higher rates. On Tuesday, the 30-stock index swung 1,167.5 points before closing 567 points higher.