After two sessions of poor performance, Wall Street turned higher on Wednesday lifted with higher-than-expected profit at Boeing Co.
In afternoon trading, the Dow industrials average added more than 60 points as 17 Dow components were in positive territory. The gains in blue chips were led by Boeing which moved up 5.1 percent after reporting a profit gain of 38 percent in the first quarter.
Turning to the S and P 500, the index added 4.74 points to 1,381. with the IT sector pacing the most advances. Among the decliners in the index were energy and materials.
The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite index gained more than 23 points ahead of results from Apple Inc.
Meanwhile, crude oil was lower by 26 cents to $117.81 a barrel ahead of inventory data from the Energy Department. In the previous session, crude surged close to $120 a barrel on Tuesday.
In overseas trading, Asian shares showed modest gains with the Nikkei up two tenths of a percent in Tokyo, while the FTSE100 index declined half a percent in London, reports MarketWatch.