Stock indexes extended gains to records on Wednesday following positive second-quarter earnings from several companies.
Morgan Stanley (MS) and Microsoft (MSFT) both reported earnings that topped expectations, with technology and healthcare leading advancers.
Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for both earnings and revenue as their cloud-based business Azure saw "significant customer momentum." Additionally, Morgan Stanley, Wall Street's fourth-largest investment bank, reported better-than-expected second-quarter results, giving a solid boost to the financial sector.
With equities trading higher, bond yields are climbing and gold is lower as havens investments become less attractive. The dollar is stronger against the euro and the yen, but weaker against sterling as a result of an unexpected decline in the UK jobless rate to 4.9% from 5%.
European markets were buoyed by upbeat UK jobs data and quarterly results from Germany's SAP (SAP) and Volkswagen. Though the European Central Bank is not expected to adjust interest rates at Thursday's policy meeting, there is a high possibility that it will extend its quantitative easing program by another year to offset Brexit-related pressures on the Euro-zone economy.
West Texas Intermediate crude gained 1.1% and Brent futures added 1.7%. Among energy ETFs, the US Oil Fund rose 0.5% and the US Natural Gas Fund fell 2%. SPDR Gold Shares fell 1%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%, the Standard & Poor's 500 added 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1%.
The FTSE rose 0.5%, the Nikkei lost 0.3% and the Shanghai Composite declined 0.3%.
