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1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks rally on upbeat earnings, rebounding oil

Xinhua, April 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks posted sizable gains on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index above 5,000 points at closing for the first time since March 23, boosted by generally positive earnings reports and the surging oil prices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 75.91 points, or 0.42 percent, to 18,112.61. The S&P 500 increased 10.79 points, or 0.51 percent, to 2,106.63. The Nasdaq advanced 33.73 points, or 0.68 percent, to 5,011.02.

Intel reported quarterly results after Tuesday's closing bell. The chipmaker posted first-quarter revenue of 12.8 billion U.S. dollars, in line with expectations, and net income of 2 billion dollars. Its shares jumped 4.26 percent to 32.83 dollars apiece, as the company said it expects to benefit from gains in its personal computer chips and its data center business.

Delta Air Lines' first-quarter profit topped analysts' expectations as lower oil price continued to cheer its bottom line. Its shares rose 2.60 percent to 44.20 dollars apiece Wednesday. Delta's adjusted pre-tax income for the first quarter was 594 million dollars, an increase of 150 million over the same period of 2014.

Bank of America posted a first quarter net income of 3.4 billion dollars, or 0.27 per diluted share Wednesday. Its quarterly profit narrowly beat analysts' expectations. Its shares dipped 1.14 percent to 15.64 dollars apiece.

Adding optimistic sentiment to the market, oil prices continued to rise on Wednesday. U.S. oil closed at 56.39 dollars a barrel, its highest level of the year, as a government report showed that U.S. crude output dropped last week.

Last week U.S. crude production decreased 20,000 barrels to 9. 384 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Boosted by surging oil prices, the energy sector gained 2.30 percent Wednesday, leading the advancers among the S&P 500's ten sectors.

On the economic front, industrial production decreased 0.6 percent in March after increasing 0.1 percent in February, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. For the first quarter of 2015 as a whole, industrial production declined at an annual rate of 1. 0 percent, the first quarterly decrease since the second quarter of 2009.

"The strong dollar, weak global economy and weakness in the oil industry likely all contributed to the drop. Weather and the port slowdown may have hurt production too," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note. Endite