Goldman Sachs Helps Lead Dow To New Record Intraday High

Stocks have moved mostly higher in morning trading on Wednesday, adding to the gains posted in the previous session. With the upward move on the day, the Dow and the S&P 500 have reached new record intraday highs.

Currently, the Dow and the S&P 500 are hovering near their best levels of the day. The Dow is up 210.20 points or 0.6 percent at 33,887.47 and the S&P 500 is up 9.44 points or 0.2 percent at 4,151.03, while the Nasdaq is up 15.82 points or 0.1 percent at 14,011.91.

The advance by the Dow is partly due to significant strength among shares of Goldman Sachs (GS), with the financial giant jumping by 3.8 percent.

Goldman Sachs is moving higher after reporting first quarter results that beat analyst estimates on both the top and bottom lines.

Banking giant Wells Fargo (WFC) has also shown a notable move to the upside after reporting better than expected first quarter results.

On the other hand, shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) have moved lower even though the financial giant reported first quarter results that exceeded expectations.

The release of the quarterly results comes as earnings season gets underway, with Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and PepsiCo (PEP) among the companies due to report their results before the start of trading on Thursday.

In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department released a report showing another notable increase by import prices in the month of March.

The report said import prices surged up by 1.2 percent in March after jumping by 1.3 percent in February. Economists had expected import prices to climb by 1.0 percent.

The Labor Department noted import prices spiked by 4.1 percent from December to March, reflecting the largest three-month increase since May of 2011.

The report also said export prices soared by 2.1 percent in March after shooting up by 1.6 percent in February. Export prices were expected to increase by 1.0 percent.

Energy stocks are seeing substantial strength in morning trading, moving sharply higher along with the price of crude oil.

Crude for May delivery is soaring $2.24 to $62.42 a barrel following the release of a report showing a bigger than expected weekly drop in crude oil inventories.

Reflecting the strength in the energy sector, the Philadelphia Oil Service Index is up by 5.5 percent, the NYSE Arca Oil Index is up by 3.7 percent and the NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index is up by 2.8 percent.

Significant strength has also emerged among steel stocks, as reflected by the 3.9 percent spike by the NYSE Arca Steel Index. The index has reached its best intraday level in almost ten years.

Biotechnology stocks are also seeing considerable strength on the day, with the NYSE Arca Biotechnology Index surging up by 2.2 percent.

Brokerage, airline and banking stocks have also shown notable moves to the upside, moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Wednesday, although Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index bucked the uptrend and fell by 0.4 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite Index climbed by 0.6 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped by 1.4 percent.

Most European stocks have also moved to the upside on the day. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index is up by 0.7 percent and the French CAC 40 Index is up by 0.4 percent, while the German DAX Index has bucked the uptrend and dipped by 0.1 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries are seeing modest weakness after moving notably higher in the previous session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is up by 1.3 basis points at 1.636 percent.

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