By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 stock index closed more than 1.0 percent higher after a sharply volatile session on Tuesday, recovering from the biggest one-day decline in the index in more than six years on Monday.

Wall Street stock indexes repeatedly swung from positive to negative territory during Tuesday's session while the Dow Jones Industrial Average had a more than 1,100-point difference between its intraday high and low.

The Dow posted a 2.3 percent increase, its biggest daily percentage gain since Jan. 29, 2016, while the S&P 500 rose 1.7 percent, its biggest one-day gain since Nov. 7, 2016, the day before the election of Donald Trump as president.

Some analysts view the recent selloff, which began last Friday amid concerns over higher interest rates and lofty valuations, as a healthy pullback after a rapid run-up to record highs at the start of the year.

They argue that the improving global economic outlook is a positive for stocks overall, but they said it could take some time before the market settles down.

"You'll probably see a little bit of this volatility - my gut feeling tells me - probably for another couple of days, and then things will calm down somewhat," said Peter Costa, president of Empire Executions in New York.

Monday's slump in U.S. stocks was a break from many months of relative steady gains and left market participants grappling with an implosion of products that bet against volatility.

The Cboe Volatility Index, known as the VIX, which is the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility for the S&P 500 index, closed lower, a day after it hit its highest level since 2015.

On Wall Street, all but two S&P 500 index sectors ended higher, with economically sensitive materials, technology and consumer discretionary indexes posting the biggest gains. Rate-sensitive utilities, down 1.5 percent, led decliners.

"Despite violent moves in the last couple days in the market, fundamentals in the economy are very strong and it's not just the U.S., it's throughout the global economy," Alicia Levine, head of global investment strategy at BNY Mellon Investment Management in New York.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 567.02 points, or 2.33 percent, to 24,912.77, the S&P 500 gained 46.2 points, or 1.74 percent, to 2,695.14 and the Nasdaq Composite added 148.36 points, or 2.13 percent, to 7,115.88.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index lost 2.50 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.14 percent.

Emerging market stocks lost 2.74 percent, but the iShares MSCI emerging markets exchange-traded fund jumped 3.3 percent.