A fresh bounce for oil prices offered support to US and European equities although there remained plenty for participants to remain concerned about, not least a poorly received set of earnings from Apple and uncertainty about the outlook for US monetary policy.
Oil see-sawed as the markets digested data from the Energy Information Administration that showed a rise in overall US crude inventories to the highest level on record. But the markets appeared to pay more attention to news of a drop in stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for West Texas Intermediate.
And an hour or so after the release of the EIA figures, Brent oil was up 3.6 per cent at $32.95 a barrel — the highest in more than two weeks — while WTI was 3.8 per cent higher at $32.65. Importantly, both managed to spend the day above the $30 mark that many increasingly see as a key support level.
Crude’s rally helped the S&P 500 equity index recover from a weak start and trade 0.4 per cent higher at 1,911 by midday in New York, even as Apple shares fell nearly 5 per cent, in heavy volume, in response to concerns about slowing iPhone shipments.
Boeing was another serious drag on the S&P as its shares fell 7.5 per cent after it delivered gloomy guidance for 2016.
The better tone on Wall Street helped fuel a late rally for European stock indices. The pan-regional Stoxx 600 finished 0.3 per cent firmer at the day’s high, as the FTSE 100 in London jumped 1.3 per cent and Germany’s Xetra Dax rose 0.6 per cent.
Those gains came after a generally positive session for Asian markets. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 2.7 per cent and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong 1 per cent, although the Shanghai Composite slipped 0.5 per cent after Tuesday’s 6.4 per cent slide.
