Stocks rebounded modestly today after two sessions of steep declines brought by the surging price of oil.

Oil prices set another trading record overnight — moving above $135 per barrel for the first time — but pulled off their highs, offering some relief for investors. And the Labor Department said the number of workers seeking unemployment benefits declined by 9,000 last week to 365,000. The market expected a slight increase.

But the economic fallout from ascendent energy prices remained Wall Street’s focus.

The advance in stocks followed a decline in the Dow Jones industrial average that totaled about 427 points, or 3.3%, over the course of Tuesday and yesterday. It was the steepest two-day loss since late February. Stocks have declined in three of the past four sessions.

The spike in oil prices has fanned investors’ uneasiness about inflation. One big fear is that consumers worried about rising prices for everything from gasoline to food will be less willing to reach into their wallet for other items. A pullback could deal a major blow to the economy as consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of American economic activity. And rising oil drives up transportation costs and many other expenses for businesses that aren’t directly dependent on consumers.

Light, sweet crude rose 34 cents to $133.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, oil topped $135.

In the first hour of trading, the Dow rose 37.78, or 0.29%, to 12,638.97.

Broader stock indicators also moved higher. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.81, or 0.20%, to 1,393.52, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 8.34, or 0.33%, to 2,456.61.

Still, even with the declines of more than 2% in the major indexes this week, stocks are still well off their mid-March lows. The Dow industrials are about 7.4% above where they closed on March 10, when investors were preoccupied with worries over the soundness of the credit markets. Since then, Wall Street has reshuffled its list of concerns, placing greater emphasis on the well-being of the overall economy, not just the troubled financial sector.

Bond prices fell today. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.88% from 3.81% late yesterday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

In corporate news, Ford Motor Co. warned that it no longer expects to return to profitability by next year and that it is trimming North American production of pickups and SUVs for the rest of this year because of high gas prices and a shaky economy. The automaker also lowered its forecasts for American sales for 2008. Ford fell 57 cents, or 7.3%, to $7.23.

Power wholesaler NRG Energy Inc. said it offered to acquire rival Calpine Corp. for about $11.3 billion in stock. Calpine, which has dual headquarters in San Jose and Houston, released details of the unsolicited bid yesterday. NRG fell $1.39, or 3.3%, to $41.12, while Calpine jumped $1.56, or 7.3%, to $22.84.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by about 8 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 167.4 million shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 5.35, or 0.74%, to 732.46.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.37%. In afternoon trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.35%, Germany’s DAX index declined 0.51%, and France’s CAC-40 fell 0.52%.