Jump In Oil Prices Contributes To Strength On Wall Street - U.S. Commentary

(RTTNews) - While buying interest has remained somewhat subdued, stocks are seeing modest strength in early trading on Wednesday. The major averages continue to regain ground after ending Monday's trading at their lowest closing levels in a month.

In recent trading, the major averages have reached new highs for the young session. The Dow is up 67.73 points or 0.4 percent at 18,229.67, the Nasdaq is up 4.72 points or 0.1 percent at 5,248.56 and the S&P 500 is up 6.00 points or 0.3 percent at 2,145.60.

The modest strength on Wall Street is partly to gains by energy stocks, which are moving higher along with the price of crude oil.

Crude oil for November is jumping $1.21 to $51.50 a barrel following the release of a report showing an unexpected drop in weekly crude oil inventories.

The report from the Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories slumped by 5.2 million barrels last week compared to expectations for an increase of about 2.7 million barrels.

Oil service stocks have shown a particularly strong move to the upside, resulting in a 3.2 percent jump by the Philadelphia Oil Service Index.

Halliburton (HAL) is posting a standout gain within the oil service sector after reporting an unexpected third quarter profit.

Banking, steel, and gold stocks have also moved higher over the course of the morning, although most of the other major sectors are showing only modest moves.

Meanwhile, a notable decline by shares of Intel (INTC) is limiting the upside for the tech-heavy Nasdaq, with the semiconductor giant tumbling by 5.6 percent.

The drop by Intel comes after the company reported better than expected third quarter results but forecast fourth quarter revenues below analyst estimates.

In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report before the start of trading showing that housing starts unexpectedly tumbled to their lowest level in well over a year in September.

The report said housing starts plunged by 9.0 percent to an annual rate of 1.047 million in September after slumping by 5.6 percent to a revised 1.150 million in August.

The continued decline came as a surprise to economists, who had expected housing starts to climb to a rate of 1.180 million from the 1.142 million originally reported for the previous month.

With the unexpected decrease, housing starts dropped to their lowest annual rate since hitting 964,000 in March of 2015.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department also said building permits surged up by 6.3 percent to an annual rate of 1.225 million in September after rising by 0.7 percent to a revised 1.152 million in August.

Building permits, an indicator of future housing demand, had been expected to increase to 1.165 million from the 1.139 million that had been reported for the previous month.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Wednesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index edged up by 0.2 percent, while Australia's All Ordinaries Index rose by 0.5 percent. However, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index bucked the uptrend and fell by 0.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets have turned higher after seeing initial weakness. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index is rising by 0.4 percent, the German DAX Index and the French CAC 40 Index are both up by 0.2 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries have shown a lack of direction after moving higher over the two previous sessions. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is up by less than a basis point at 1.757 percent.