Investing.com - Wall Street opened slightly higher on Wednesday as investors priced in company news and signs of inflation easing, while oil jumped in reaction to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal and impose sanctions on the country.
At 9:38AM ET (13:38GMT), the Dow Jones gained 74 points, or 0.31%, the S&P 500 rose 9 points, or 0.35%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 15 points, or 0.21%.
In a televised speech Tuesday, Trump said the United States would withdraw from a 2015 international agreement designed to deny Tehran the ability to build nuclear weapons, and also reimpose “the highest level of economic sanctions” against Iran.
Stocks saw tepid close a day earlier in reaction to the news, but risk appetite appeared to be back on the table Wednesday.
Oil prices soared more than 2% on Wednesday on bets that the return of sanctions would further tighten global supplies as they make it more difficult for Iran to export oil.
U.S. crude futures jumped 2.45% to $70.75 by 9:39AM ET (13:39GMT), while Brent oil soared 2.54% to $76.75.
The rally came ahead of fresh weekly data on U.S. commercial crude inventories to gauge the strength of demand in the world’s largest oil consumer and how fast output levels will continue to rise.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its official weekly oil supplies report for the week ended May 4 at 10:30AM ET (1430GMT), amid forecasts for an oil-stock drop of 719,000 barrels.
After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories fell by nearly 1.9 million barrels last week.
In company news, shares in Walmart (NYSE:WMT) slumped nearly 3% after the retail giant announced that it would pay $16 billion to take a majority stake in India’s Flipkart.
Also among Dow components, Disney (NYSE:DIS) reported a 21% jump in revenue thanks primarily to its release of Black Panther and higher returns from its theme parks.
However, investors appeared to focus on 6% drop in profit for its media networks unit as ESPN continued to lose subscribers. Shares were off around 1%.
In better earnings news, TripAdvisor (NASDAQ:TRIP) saw shares soar around 20% Wednesday after the travel and restaurant website smashed consensus estimates.
Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) jumped more than 10% after the provider of online coupons reported a surprise adjusted profit.
Office Depot (NASDAQ:ODP) was also seeing stellar gains of nearly 13% despite in line earnings as the retailer lifted its 2018 outlook.
On the economic front, annual readings of the producer price index and the core PPI both eased more than expected in April to 2.6% and 2.3%, respectively.
The Federal Reserve keeps its eye on this data because when producers pay more for goods, they are more likely to pass price increases on to the consumer, so PPI could be considered a leading indicator of inflation.
The CPI for April which will be released on Thursday.