Top business and economy news blog

Stocks open higher; profits at banks provide boost

Stocks edged higher early Wednesday as investors found some encouragement from the latest batch of earnings reports.

A handful of banks, including Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, reported better results for the July-September period Wednesday. However both those banks also reported high loan losses, bringing fresh reminders that the broader economy is struggling even as the financial industry recovers.

Last week, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. all reported higher credit losses as consumers and businesses struggle to pay off their bills.

Many other companies were also reporting third-quarter results, not all of them positive. Continental Airlines Inc. cited lower revenue from business travelers as it reported a loss for the third quarter. Competitor AirTran Airways posted a profit, benefiting from the discount carrier's low costs and focus on domestic routes where it believes it can make money.

On Tuesday, United Airlines said it is seeing early signs of a recovery in business travel as it reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.

Investors are eager to see whether companies from a range of industries on continue to post better-than-expected earnings. Soft U.S. housing data on Tuesday squelched some of the market's optimism, sending major indexes down about half a percent.

In the first hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 40.81, or 0.4 percent, to 10,082.29.

The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 5.87, or 0.5 percent, to 1,096.93, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 16.82, or 0.8 percent, to 2,180.29.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.40 percent from 3.34 percent late Tuesday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, was unchanged from 0.08 percent late Tuesday.

The dollar mostly fell against other major currencies. Gold prices also fell.

Crude oil fell 30 cents to $78.82 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 6.13, or 1 percent, to 619.54.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.03 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.6 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 0.4 percent, and France's CAC-40 slid 0.7 percent.