U.S. Stocks Boosted by Apple Results, Jobs Data

Wall Street stocks rose early Wednesday on strong Apple earnings and another good set of U.S. hiring data.

About 55 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 25,463.48, up 0.2 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.3 percent to 2,824.24, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.6 percent to 7,720.88.

Apple shot up nearly five percent after reporting that quarterly profit jumped more than 30 percent to $11.5 billion in the recently ended quarter, besting market expectations despite selling fewer iPhones than analysts projected.

The solid earnings lifted Apple, already the world's biggest company by market capitalization, closer to the $1 trillion mark.

Payrolls firm ADP said the U.S. private sector added 219,000 new jobs in July, the most since February and surpassing the 175,000 consensus forecast among economists.

The report comes two days ahead of the closely scrutinized government jobs report for the same period.

The Federal Reserve concludes a two-day policy meeting later Wednesday. The U.S. central bank is expected to keep interest rates unchanged, but the communique will be scrutinized for the latest thinking on inflation and whether the pace of interest rate hikes will need to be accelerated.