Stocks on Wall Street hit a five-month high, boosted by a strong burst of earnings, a jump in Chinese demand for commodities and a weaker dollar.Blue chips Intel and JP Morgan Chase both topped earnings expectations, but saw their shares sag. JP Morgan dr
Stocks on Wall Street hit a five-month high, boosted by a strong burst of earnings, a jump in Chinese demand for commodities and a weaker dollar.
Blue chips Intel and JP Morgan Chase both topped earnings expectations, but saw their shares sag. JP Morgan dropped 1.7%, while Intel fell 2.7%.
JP Morgan's softness came despite reporting a 23% rise in third-quarter profit to $US4.42 billion, Intel's decline came despite announcing a better-than-expected 59% jump in third-quarter profit.
Other technology stocks rallied, with Apple shares rising over $US300 for the first time, Cisco Systems adding 2.5%, Hewlett-Packard rising 2.1% and Microsoft gaining 2.1%.
China's trade surplus fell to a five-month low for September, as commodity imports staged an unexpected rebound.
Alcoa gained 1.3%, while Caterpillar added 1.2%. Railway operator CSX jumped 4.6% after reporting a better-than-expected 43% rise in third-quarter profits
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 75.68 points, or 1.1%, up at 11,178.10. The S&P 500 index advanced 0.7% to 1178.10, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.0% to 2441.23.
Other markets: Europe, Asia up
European shares rose on a larger-than-expected rebound in euro-zone industrial production helped boost sentiment.
August output increased 1% and would have been stronger were it not for a stunning 13.6% drop in Irish production.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index added 1.4% to 266.25. The UK's FTSE 100 closed up 1.5% at 5747.35, Germany's DAX added 2.1% to 6434.52 and France's CAC-40 closed up 2.1% at 3828.34.
All Asian markets were higher, with Hong Kong rising to a 28-month high while Japanese stocks rose for the first time in four sessions after upbeat machinery orders data.
The Chinese market ended modestly higher, reversing earlier losses, after the release of weaker-than-expected trade data for September.
Japan's Nikkei Stock Average was up 0.2% to 9403.51, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was flat at 4619.88, and Korea's Kospi Composite rose 0.4% to 1876.15.
China's Shanghai Composite Index added 0.7% to 2861.36. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was 1.5% higher at 23,457.69 and India's Sensex was up 2.4% to 20,687.88.
Commodities: Oil, gold up
Crude-oil futures broke a two-day slide after China imported record levels of oil in September and the dollar weakened.
China imported 5.67 million barrels of crude oil in September, its highest ever monthly total and a year-on-year rise of 35%,
Light, sweet crude for November delivery traded $US1.10, or 1.4%, higher at $US82.77 a barrel in New York. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded 93USc higher at $US84.43 a barrel.
Gold futures settled above $US1370 for the first time. The most actively traded gold contract, for December delivery, rose $US23.80, or 1.8%, to settle at a record $US1,370.50 an ounce in New York.
Gold reached as high as $US1375.70, the strongest ever intraday price for a most-active contract. Thinly traded front-month October gold also posted a record settlement at $US1369.50.
Currencies: Dollar down, euro up
The US dollar fell broadly as the likelihood of more monetary easing and low interest rates pushed investors toward higher-yielding assets.
Currencies tied closely to commodity prices, such as the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars, jumped on a 2% spike in the price of a barrel of oil.
The Australian dollar reached 99.31USc, its highest point since the currency was floated in 1983. The New Zealand dollar hit 76.32USc, its highest in nearly a year.
The US dollar dipped to a five-month low of $C1.0010, from $C1.0105 late on Tuesday as both the Canadian and Australian currencies nudged parity with the greenback.
The euro was at $US1.3968 from $US1.3916 late on Tuesday. The dollar was unchanged at ¥81.85, while the euro was at ¥114.29 yen from ¥113.90, though buying was muted after warnings of possible intervention from Japanese authorities.
The UK pound was at $US1.5840 from $US1.5800. The dollar was at 0.9588 Swiss francs, up from 0.9569 francs late on Tuesday and from an intraday low of 0.9544 francs.
