NEW YORK: Solid earnings reports from market leaders like Caterpillar and rising European markets helped push US stocks higher on opening Thursday.
After a half hour of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 58.80 points (0.46 percent) to 12,815.76.
The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 5.18 (0.39 percent) to 1,331.23, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 12.17 (0.43 percent) to 2,830.48.
"The major equity averages are up with modest gains this morning, but the advance is still enough to put the broad market at its best level since summer," said analysts at Briefing.com.
Caterpillar led the Dow blue chips higher, rising 3.1 percent after the heavy equipment maker posted a 60 percent rise in net income to $1.5 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011.
Video rental house Netflix was up 22.9 percent after it reported late Thursday solid gains in its streaming service subscriber base.
But shares in AT&T sank 2.2 percent after it turned in a whopping loss of $6.7 billion for the fourth quarter, mainly due to charges from its failed takeover of T-Mobile but also from subsidy costs related to a surge in sales of iPhones.
Also helping stocks was a more buoyant mood in Europe, with the major bourses all rising and the Euro Stoxx 50 index of blue chips up 1.53 percent.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.95 percent from 2.01 percent on Wednesday, while the 30-year slipped to 3.12 percent from 3.15 percent.
Bond prices and yields in opposite directions.
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