Investing.com - Wall Street was higher on Wednesday as jobless claims fell near a 50-year low, signaling that the labor market might not be as weak as originally thought.
The Dow gained 118 points, or 0.5%, by 9:55 AM ET (13:55 GMT), while the S&P 500 was up 6 points, or 0.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 20 points, or 0.3%.
The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell by 10,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 202,000, the lowest level since December 1969.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) was among the top gainers after the morning bell, rising 1.9% after Ethiopia’s transport ministry did not explicitly mention the airline maker's new software in its released findings of the Ethopian Airlines crash involving a 737 MAX 8 model.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) was up 1.1%, while Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) gained 1.4% after tickets for its movie "Avengers: Endgame", which is to be released at the end of April, set a record for one-day sales on Fandango.
Elsewhere, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slumped 8.5% after it reported a 31% drop in vehicle deliveries for the first quarter of 2019, due to difficulties in Europe and China and a reduction in U.S. tax credits. Office Depot (NASDAQ:ODP) tumbled 15.9% after it warned it would have lower first-quarter results than anticipated.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.7% to $1,286.25 a troy ounce, while crude oil was flat at $62.45 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, gained 0.2% to 96.873.