Wall Street climbs as tech, industrial gain; Cisco up after upbeat results

Wall Street's main indexes were trading higher on Thursday with gains in technology and industrial stocks more than offsetting losses in energy stocks.

Oil prices fell more than 1 percent as worries of rising U. S. production outweighed a weak dollar. The S&P 500 energy index was down nearly 2 percent.

At 11:33 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2 percent at 24,943.93 and the S&P 500 rose 0.21 percent to 2,704.22. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.5 percent to 7,179.58, helped by gains for Apple and Cisco.

Apple rose 1.6 percent after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made the iPhone maker its top investment.

Cisco gained 3.3 percent on upbeat results and forecast.

Wall Street shrugged off fears of rising inflation and higher interest rates to open more than half a percent higher on Thursday, putting the markets on course for their fifth straight day of gains.

Data showed U. S. producer prices rose 0.4 percent in January, but only matched economists' estimates and likely helped further ease fears of inflation uptick.

"We're continuing to see a bounce back, a recovery from the recent pullback.

Everyone sold in the anticipation of the world ending and when it does not end, all of a sudden people decide to move back in," said Brad McMillan, chief investment officer of Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Massachusetts.

"We've shaken out a lot of people who are worried. Many of the sellers have already sold and consequently there are lot of more buyers and fewer sellers in the market."

Seven of the 11 major S&P sectors were up, led by gains in technology and industrials.

The S&P 500 has now surged about 5 percent since last Thursday, but is still 5.5 percent below its record high on Jan. 26.

U. S. Treasury yields slipped on Thursday after sizable gains in recent sessions, as investors took a breather from selling bonds.

Benchmark 10-year U. S. Treasury yields fell to 2.8876 after hitting a more than four-year peak of 2.944 percent.

The CBOE Volatility index, also known as Wall Street's 'fear gauge', rose to a session high of 19.85 points, but was well off the 50-point peak it touched last week.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,398 to 1,381. On the Nasdaq, 1,460 issues rose and 1,306 fell.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)