Thursday's early afternoon trade: Wall Street hits record as oil, industrial stocks gain

Wall Street surged to fresh highs on Thursday as rising oil prices lifted energy stocks and upbeat forecast from No. 2 US carrier Delta Air Lines drove airline stocks higher. Brent crude rose above $70 a barrel and US crude rose 1.57 percent to $64.58 per barrel, its highest since December 2014, boosted by a surprise drop in US production and lower crude inventories.
Chevron rose 3.2 percent and Exxon 1.5 percent, helping the S&P energy index gain 2.24 percent and putting it on track for its best percentage gain in more than seven months. Delta Air Lines rose about 2 percent after reporting upbeat quarterly profit as well as forecast, helped by higher business fares in a busy holiday season.
That helped the Dow Jones US Airlines index up 2.25 percent. "You see this continued rotation into stocks that will accelerate with the economy," said Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional sales trading at Robert W. Baird in Milwaukee.
"Energy is in a good space with crude above 64 bucks and you have industrials being driven by airlines stocks." At 12:20 pm ET (1720 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 119.54 points, or 0.47 percent, at 25,488.67 and the S&P 500 was up 10.06 points, or 0.37 percent, at 2,758.29.
The Nasdaq Composite was up 28.63 points, or 0.4 percent, at 7,182.20. Wall Street snapped its six days of gains for the first time in 2018 on Wednesday over speculations that China would slow US government bond purchases and a report that US President Donald Trump would end a key trade agreement.