What happened

After Monday's historic crash, Wall Street enjoyed a rebound in share prices today, with the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq all closing just shy of 5% gains. Big as those gains were, though, they pale in comparison with the resurgence in stock price at Teekay (TK 2.83%) on Tuesday: 45%!

Oil tanker foredeck

Image source: Getty Images.

So what

Teekay's fabulous rise today wasn't because of a great earnings report or an analyst upgrade. It appears to have had no news to report, either good or bad.  

Instead, it appears to have been boosted by two factors: First, all the oil stocks were on the rise today, and because Teekay carries oil for the industry, it benefited from the broadly positive sentiment about oil.

Second, Teekay's main field of operation is transporting oil and natural gas. And although oil prices went up today, they're still down pretty sizably from where they were just this past Friday. If you assume that cheap oil is something that will spur demand for oil (and for natural gas as an alternative to oil), and also demand for shippers to ship both, then this is doubly good news for a stock like Teekay.

Now what

This would in fact explain pretty well why Teekay, which lost 23% of its market capitalization in Monday's rout, today scored gains twice as big, and why Teekay's stock price is now sitting very pretty: 12% above where it sat on Friday.