Investing.com – Wall Street traded higher on Wednesday as second-quarter earnings continued to impress, crude reacted to the upside on a bigger-than-expected draw on U.S. inventories and markets once again began to contemplate that the Federal Reserve (Fed) could hike rates this year.
At 15:36GMT, or 11:36AM ET, the Dow 30 advanced 59 points, or 0.31%, the S&P 500 gained 11 points, or 0.51%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 53 points, or 1.05%.
As the second-quarter earnings season continues to roll on, stocks were buoyed by results coming out less than feared.
Earnings at S&P 500 companies were now expected to fall by only 4.3%, down from the 4.7% decline estimated before the reporting season got underway, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
On Wednesday, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) soared more than 6% and led the Dow higher after the technology company reported upbeat quarterly earnings thanks to sharp growth in its commercial cloud computing business.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) also helped investor sentiment with shares rising closing to 3% after the bank’s earnings fell less than expected.
American Express (NYSE:AXP), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and eBay were among companies set to report earnings after the market close on Wednesday.
Outside of earnings news, Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) was the biggest decliner on the Dow with losses of 1% after a downgrade to hold from buy on valuation from Stifel.
General Electric (NYSE:GE) was in the news after announcing a digital partnership with Huawei.
PIMCO also grabbed headlines as it hired Emmanuel 'Manny' Roman, the chief executive of the world's biggest listed hedge fund Man Group plc (L:EMG) and former Goldman Sachs banker, for its helm as it tries to reverse a slump in fortunes since co-founder Bill Gross left in 2014.
Meanwhile, markets once again to price in the possibility of a Fed rate hike at the December meeting with odds increasing to 50.4% on Wednesday.
With no major economic data out during the session, the dollar was hovering near 4-month highs.
Oil also staged a remarkable 2% swing, trading up after a bigger than expected draw on U.S. crude inventories.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories fell by 2.3 million barrels in the week ended July 15. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock decline of 2.1 million barrels.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.55% to $45.70 by 15:38GMT, or 11:38AM ET, while Brent oil traded up 0.92% to $47.09.