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Dow surges toward 10,000
Stocks soar on better-than-expected results from JPMorgan, Intel earnings. Retail sales decline in September, but beat the forecast.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) jumped 95 points, or 1%, to 9,967. The S&P 500 (SPX) gained 12 points, or 1.1%, to 1,085, while the Nasdaq composite (COMP) rose 25 points, or 1.2%, to 2,164.
The Dow is within spitting distance of 10,000 -- a level not seen since Oct. 3, 2008, when it reached 10,124 during the trading session.
"It looks like were going to have a pretty strong open," said Len Blum, managing director at Westwood Capital LLC, before the start of trading.
"Right now it's all about earnings," said Blum. "My sense is that the major banks are going to beat earnings this quarter, with the exception of maybe of Citi. The real question is really the long term. But today is going to be a good trading day."
Wall Street finished a choppy session mixed Tuesday as investors paused after pushing stocks to one-year highs.
Earnings: Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) reported earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street's estimates.
The company also issued an upbeat outlook, saying that it expected demand to rebound with the economic recovery.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) reported third-quarter earnings of 82 cents per share, much more than expected. The New York City finance firm was expected to report 51 cents EPS for the third quarter, according to analyst consensus from Thomson Reuters.
Economy: Retail sales dropped 1.5% in September, beating expectations, according to the U.S. government. A consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected a decline of 2.1%. That compares with August, when retail sales increased by the 2.7%.
Excluding auto sales, retail sales rose 0.5% in September. Ex-auto sales were expected to have edged up 0.2% in September, according to Briefing.com, compared to a gain of 1.1% the prior month.
A report on import and export prices showed that the price of U.S. imports edged up 0.1% in September, after increasing 1.6% the prior month.
The price of exports slipped 0.3% in September, after a revised increase of 1.6% the prior month.
At 2 p.m. ET, minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting will be released.
World markets: Global stock indexes climbed on Intel's results. Most Asian shares finished in positive territory, although Japan's Nikkei edged lower. Major European indexes were up more than 1% in midday trading.
Money and oil: The dollar fell versus major international currencies, including the euro, the pound and the yen.
The price of oil rose 76 cents to $74.91 a barrel, after earlier crossing $75 a barrel for the first time in a year. 