Wall Street opens higher for second day, recouping some October losses

NEW YORK: US stocks rallied at the start of Wednesday's trading, extending Tuesday's gains as a painful October came to a close.

General Motors and Facebook added to markets' buoyancy, with their shares soaring on good earnings news.

Despite the rally, the three major Wall Street indices were still poised to close the month with heavy losses.

About 10 minutes into the day's trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 0.9 percent to 25,109.43.

The broader S&P 500 was up 1.1 percent at 2,712.46 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was 1.8 percent higher at 7,289.01.

Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com wrote Wednesday that investment funds had supported Tuesday's rally through short-covering and boosting their equity weightings after the October rout.

"Lest we forget, there is also the abiding sense that the stock market has gotten oversold and is due for a meaningful bounce," he wrote.

The payrolls firm ADP reported Wednesday that US job creation was unexpectedly strong in October, with employers adding a net 227,000 new positions.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department also reported that US workers had seen the largest year-on-year jump in wages in 10 years.

Both conditions could support Federal Reserve plans to continue increasing interest rates but markets appeared unmoved by such concerns.

General Motors rose 6.5 percent after reporting earnings of $2.5 billion -- up from a loss of $3 billion in the year-ago period when results were hit by a one-time accounting charge.

Facebook jumped 5.8 percent after Tuesday's earnings report, which showed a nine percent jump in quarterly profit.

Sprint Corp also rocketed 11 percent higher after beating earnings expectations.