Wall Street ticks higher as New York explosion worries wane

By Sruthi Shankar and Rama Venkat Raman

REUTERS - U.S stocks indexes edged higher on Monday, recovering from a brief uncertainty following an explosion at one of New York's busiest commuter hubs.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the incident an attempted terrorist attack after an initial investigation found that a man with a bomb-like device strapped to his body set off the explosion.

"When you see one of these events in a major city, you get a little cautious tone. But it's never enough to really rout a stock market intraday," said Michael Antonelli, managing director, institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.

Interest in the surge in bitcoin and opening of futures trading continued to fuel bets on crypotcurrency related stocks, many of which have risen exponentially in value in the past three months. Shares of Marathon Patent, Riot Blockchain , Overstock.com and Xunlei were up between 6 percent and 17 percent. Bitcoin futures jumped more than 20 percent in the U.S. debut on Sunday, which backers hope will encourage wider use and give legitimacy to cryptocurrency.

At 10:55 a.m. ET (1555 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 18.21 points, or 0.07 percent, at 24,347.37 and the S&P 500 was up 4.27 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,655.77.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 17.32 points, or 0.25 percent, at 6,857.40.

Eight of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, led by gains in energy index as oil prices edged higher on the back of New York explosion. [O/R]

Apple's 1.5 percent rise led gainers among technology stocks and was the top boost to all the three major index.

Financial, consumer staple and industrial stocks were the biggest losers.

"The rotation from growth to value is going to continue and you will probably see that more today and rest of the week," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR in Boston.

Century was the biggest gainer on S&P 500, rising about 7 percent after the telecom services provider signed a 5-year contract to provide data networking products with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Bluebird Bios shares rose to a record high at $222.03, surging about 30 percent after its experimental gene-modifying immunotherapy drug co-developed with Celgene received positive responses in early stage myeloma study. Celgene's shares were up 1.93 percent.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,636 to 1,114. On the Nasdaq, 1,423 issues rose and 1,343 fell.

(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)