Wall St edges higher in late afternoon, Apple rebounds

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were higher in late afternoon trading on Wednesday, helped by a rebound in Apple's stock.

Boosting both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, Apple shares were up 2.5 percent. It was the most actively traded stock on the Nasdaq after at least six brokerages raised their price targets on the stock.

Apple shares ended lower on Tuesday after the company launched the iPhone 6 and introduced a new product, the Apple Watch.

Energy shares were lower, following another decline in oil prices.

The Dow Jones industrial average was rising 37.09 points, or 0.22 percent, to 17,050.96, the S&P 500 was gaining 4.41 points, or 0.22 percent, to 1,992.85 and the Nasdaq Composite was adding 25.24 points, or 0.55 percent, to 4,577.52.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange was Daqo New Energy, which was rising 11.54 percent, while the largest percentage decliner was Pulse Electronics, down 19.35 percent.

Among the most active stocks on the NYSE were Brazil's Petrobras, down 3.42 percent to $17.22 and Rite Aid, up 1.75 percent to $6.41.

Besides Apple, GT Advanced Technologies, down 14.2 percent to $12.82 and 21Vianet, down 6.4 percent to $20.49 were among the most actively traded on the Nasdaq.

21Vianet Group Inc's VNET.O shares fell as much as 35 percent before recovering and attracted big bearish bets in the options market on Wednesday after a short-selling research firm issued a research report on the China-based data center service provider, accusing the company of questionable business practices.

Declining issues were outnumbering advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,574 to 1,440, for a 1.09-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,531 issues were rising and 1,150 falling for a 1.33-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The broad S&P 500 index was posting 13 new 52-week highs and five new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 43 new highs and 53 new lows.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Chizu Nomiyama)