Wall Street up overnight on oil, good data

Specialist Michael Pistillo, left, works with traders at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. File photo / AP

Wall Street rose overnight, pushing the Dow to a record high, as the price of oil rebounded and Republicans won control of the Senate.

In afternoon trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.53 per cent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.47 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.11 per cent.

The Dow rose as shares of Visa climbed, last up 3.2 per cent. The index touched a record high 17,485.65 earlier in the session.

"It had looked like some of the races would be very close and that we might not know who controlled the Senate, but in the end the results were pretty decisive," John Carey, portfolio manager at Pioneer Investment Management in Boston, told Reuters. "That's good news for the industries that had been subject to regulatory issues."

There was good news on the jobs front too. US private employers added a better-than-expected 230,000 jobs in October, ADP National Employment data showed. That bodes well for the government's monthly payroll report, due on Friday.

"Demand is improving and businesses can't count on productivity gains so they need to hire workers to meet that stronger demand," Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh, told Bloomberg News before the report's release. "The economy is growing, and not just in a few industries, but pretty broadly. And job growth reflects that because we're seeing broad-based job growth as well."

To be sure, the Institute for Supply Management's services index slipped to 57.1 in October, down from 58.6 in September.

While there are still a few hurdles to growth, the continuing strength of the US economy means that the government won't need to borrow as much going forward.

The Treasury Department plans to pare sales of two- and three-year notes in part at the request of US banks needing easy access to highly liquid securities. The size of 10-year and 30-year bond auctions will be unchanged.

Shares of Time Warner climbed, last up 3 per cent, after the company posted a third-quarter profit that exceeded expectations and lifted its full-year outlook.

Of the S&P 500 members that have reported their latest quarterly results, 81 per cent exceeded profit forecasts, while 61 per cent surpassed sales estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

However, shares of TripAdvisor sank, last 13.8 per cent down, after the company reported a quarterly profit that fell short of the mark amid an increase in costs and expenses.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 ended the day with a 1.7 per cent rally from the previous close. The UK's FTSE 100 Index advanced 1.3 per cent, Germany's DAX rose 1.6 per cent, while France's CAC 40 jumped 1.9 per cent.

Investors eye Thursday's gathering European Central Bank policy makers for fresh clues of additional stimulus for the flagging euro-zone economy.

Oil bounced after a weekly report showed US inventories rose at a slower-than-expected pace and after a report that a pipeline in Saudi Arabia exploded.