Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 53.83 points (0.41 percent) at 13,079.41.

The S&P 500 gained 6.82 (0.48 percent) to 1,423.00

The Nasdaq Composite added 18.91 (0.63 percent) at 3,029.15.

News Corp gained 1.3 percent after announcing a new head of its troubled British newspaper arm News International and said it was ending its iPad-only news app, The Daily.