US stocks rise for third straight day

Economic growth data in China and tech earning reports lift stocks

U.S. stocks rallied on Wednesday, 16 April 2014 gaining for the third consecutive day. Markets got a boost from better-than-expected economic growth data in China and an upbeat industrial production report in the U.S. Positive earnings from Yahoo! and Intel lifted tech stocks. The benchmark indices spent the entire trading day in the green, rallying to new highs during the last hour of action.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 162.29 points, or 1%, to 16,424.85. The Nasdaq Composite added 52.06 points, or 1.3%, to 4,086.23, recouping some of the heavy losses from last week. The S&P 500 ended the day 19.33 points, or 1%, higher at 1,862.31.

Stocks began the trading day with modest gains after the overnight session featured the release of China's Q1 GDP.

Chinese government data showed gross domestic product expanded 7.4% in the first quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. That's down from a growth rate of 7.7% in the previous quarter and below the Chinese leadership's target of about 7.5% but slightly above forecasts. On a quarterly basis, growth slowed from 1.7% to 1.4%.

The Federal Reserve's beige book was released Wednesday afternoon and was not a markets-mover. The report said the U.S. economy sees slight improvement following a fierce winter that crimped economic growth. Fed Chair Janet Yellen also gave a speech in New York Wednesday at midday. However, here remarks were not deemed market-sensitive either.

Data at Wall Street showed that housing starts increased 2.4% in March to 946,000 from an upwardly revised 920,000 in February. The consensus expected 955,000 new starts. Overall, the residential construction report was encouraging, but did not provide any evidence that the weakness in January and February was weather related. Starts remained well below 1.00 million, which was the average in the fourth quarter.

Separately, Industrial production increased 0.7% in March after increasing an upwardly revised 1.2% (from 0.6%) in February. The consensus expected industrial production to increase 0.5%. Manufacturing production increased 0.5% in March, down from an upwardly revised 1.4% (from 0.9%) in February. The March gain was in-line with the ISM production index. Despite a 0.8% decline in motor vehicles and parts production, durable goods manufacturing production increased 0.5%. Nondurable goods manufacturing production increased 0.7%, which was mostly the result of a 3.3% increase in petroleum and coal products production.

Bullion metals ended moderately higher at Comex on Wednesday, 16 April 2014. Gold for June delivery tacked on $3.20, or 0.3%, to settle at $1,303.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange after touching a low of $1,293.50 in electronic trading. May silver rose 14.5 cents, or 0.7%, to $19.63 an ounce.

Crude oil prices ended near unchange dmark on Wednesday, 16 April 2014 at Nymex. A U.S. government report on Wednesday showed a weekly jump in crude inventories that was over four times more than the market expected, but oil futures still finished a penny higher as concerns over clashes between pro-Russia militants and Ukrainian forces continued to feed worries over global oil supplies.

Crude for May delivery tacked on a cent for the session to settle at $103.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at around $104.53 before the supply data and had touched a high of $104.99 in the electronic session.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Wednesday that crude stockpiles climbed 10 million barrels for the week ended April 11. Market was looking for a climb of 2.4 million barrels. The EIA on Wednesday also said gasoline supplies edged down by 200,000 barrels, while distillate stockpiles fell 1.3 million barrels. Gasoline stockpiles were expected to fall by 1.7 million barrels, while distillates, which include heating oil, were seen down 200,000 barrels.

Indian ADRs ended mixed on Wednesday. In the IT space, Infosys fell 0.75% at $52.58 and Wipro was up 1.41% at $13.71. ICICI Bank gained 1.29% at $43.22 and HDFC Bank declined 1.03% at $40.25. In the other sectors, Tata Motors advanced 1.97% at $37.34 and Dr Reddy's Laboratories shed 1.61% at $42.15.

Treasuries settled modestly lower following a range bound session. The benchmark 10-yr yield ticked up one basis point to 2.64%.

Participation was below average as 661 million shares changed hands at the NYSE.

Tomorrow, weekly initial claims (consensus 312K) will be reported at 8:30 ET and the Philadelphia Fed Survey for April (consensus 8.6) will be released at 10:00 ET.

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