Stocks Climb, Dow Touches Record; U.S. Oil Rises After Eia Data

Stock Markets Surge: Dow Hits Record, Oil Prices Climb

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stock indexes mostly rose worldwide on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average touching a record intraday high, as more companies reported earnings that beat analysts’ expectations, while oil prices jumped.

Boosting oil was data showing crude inventories at the largest U.S. storage site hit their lowest level in three years.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin touched a record high, a day after the first U.S. bitcoin futures-based exchange-traded fund began trading.

The corporate earnings season will be in full swing in many countries over the coming weeks.

Verizon Communications Inc gained 2.3% as it added more postpaid phone subscribers than expected in the third quarter. Tesla is among companies that will release results later on Wednesday.

“We had our dip two weeks ago, and we’re buying the dip. So here we are back at all-time highs and now you’ve got sentiment almost flipped 180 degrees,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Investment Management in Chicago.

Investors are still on high alert for corporate comments on the impact of supply constraints, higher costs and labor shortages. They will also be glued to earnings from the heavily weighted U.S. technology names.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 131.85 points, or 0.37%, to 35,589.16, the S&P 500 gained 14.27 points, or 0.32%, at 4,533.9 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 12.38 points, or 0.08%, to 15,116.72.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.32% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.38%.

In the U.S. Treasury market, long-dated yields rose after a weak auction of 20-year notes.

U.S. 20-year yields rose to one-week highs of 2.1%, and were last up 2 basis points at 2.0873%. U.S 30-year yields also touched one-week peaks of 2.1210% and were last up 3 basis points at 2.1163%.

Investors are trying to gauge the outlook for interest rates. They expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to announce tapering of its bond buying, and money markets futures are pricing in one U.S. rate hike later next year.

The greenback hit a one-year high against a basket of other currencies last week as market participants ramped up bets that the Fed will raise rates sooner than expected to quell rising price pressures.

Those bets have faded, however, while investors are pricing for even more aggressive rate increases in other countries and as commodity-linked currencies including the Canadian and Australian dollars outperform.

The dollar index was last down 0.2% at 93.57.

In energy, Brent crude futures settled at $85.82 a barrel, a gain of 0.9% or 74 cents, and the highest since October 2018. November U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude, which expires on Wednesday, settled at $83.87, up 91 cents, or 1.1%. The more active WTI contract for December settled up 98 cents to $83.42 a barrel.

Earlier, U.S. crude stocks fell by 431,000 barrels in the most recent week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said, against expectations for an increase, and gasoline stocks plunged by more than 5 million barrels as refiners cut processing due to maintenance.

U.S. gold futures gained 0.90% to $1,784.10 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Karen Brettell and David Gaffen in New York; Editing by Catherine Evans, Shounak Dasgupta and Richard Chang)