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Wall Street rises sharply, fueled by strong earnings

U.S. stocks recorded substantial gains on Thursday as the latest batch of earnings boosted the market sentiment and allowed investors to forget about the geopolitical risks.

American Express led the Dow Jones Industrial as it rose nearly 6% after reporting a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly profits. CSX Corp, a railroad company, was the top performer in the S&P 500 with a daily gain of 5.6% amid the announcement of a better-than-expected quarterly net profit.

"They really are just focusing now on the micro, which they should be, on the earnings and what the earnings are saying," Ken Polcari told Reuters, Director of the NYSE floor division at O’Neil Securities in New York.

Each of the three major equity indices in the U.S. marked their biggest daily percentage gains since March 1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 174.22 points, or 0.85%, to 20,605.43, the S&P 500 rose 18 points, or 0.77%, to 2,351.75 and the Nasdaq Composite added 59.98 points, or 1.02%, to 5,923.01.

Headlines from the U.S. session

Author

Eren Sengezer

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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