An afternoon rally on Thursday was driving stocks sharply higher, and pushing the three main benchmarks back into the black for the month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 300 points, or 1.2%, at 24,366, on the back of gains in Visa Inc. and Home Depot Inc. The S&P 500 index climbed 1.1% to 2,668 as the technology sector was jolted higher on better-than-expected corporate results from Facebook Inc. while the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite Index rallied 1.6% at 7,116. The surge higher helped the three main U.S. equity gauges to recapture monthly gains, with the Dow up 1.1% so far in April, the S&P 500 returning 1% and the Nasdaq up 0.8%. All three had slipped into negative territory for April, earlier in the week.