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Stocks are rallying
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Stocks were slightly higher on Wednesday afternoon, in what's been a mixed session for equities and crude oil.
Near 2:34 p.m. ET, the Dow was up 54 points, the S&P 50 was up 12 points, and the Nasdaq was up 21 points – all less than 1%.
West Texas Intermediate crude rallied for a fourth day, but gave up the gains. Futures in New York had climbed nearly 2% to as high as $49.70 on Wednesday morning; WTI last hit $50 per barrel on July 22. Crude fell into the red after Energy Information Administration data showed a build in inventories last week.
In afternoon trade, WTI was down more than 1% near $47.76.
The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported an unexpected draw in crude oil inventories, by 1.2 million barrels last week.
Yesterday, the EIA said US crude production rose by an estimated 120,000 barrels in September.
Energy stocks were among the biggest gainers on the S&P 500 in early trading.
There's no major economic data due today.
Monsanto reported a fourth-quarter loss of 19 cents per adjusted share on revenues of $2.36 billion, both missing expectations. The stock fell about 2% in premarket trading.
The earnings calendar is otherwise light, but aluminum giant Alcoa reports after the market close tomorrow, and then earnings season really kicks off next week with Intel, Alphabet (the new parent company of Google), and Citigroup among the names on the schedule.
Yum Brands is still getting crushed, down as much as 17% in early trading following Tuesday's earnings release that missed expectations on the top and bottom lines, and reflected headwinds from China.
And, GoPro fell more than 8% to an all-time low after Morgan Stanley analysts cut their price target nearly 50% and said dissapointing sales of its new, small camera were a "harbinger of future dissapointments."
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