NEW YORK, July 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks traded higher on Thursday, with major indices hitting record highs, bolstered by upbeat earnings.
By noon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 61.60 points, or 0.28 percent, to 21,772.61. The S&P 500 rose 4.68 points, or 0.19 percent, to 2,482.51. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 31.50 points, or 0.49 percent, to 6,454.25.
Shares of Facebook soared more than 4 percent early Thursday, after the social media giant posted better-than-expected quarterly results.
Facebook reported second-quarter diluted earnings per share of 1.32 U.S. dollars on revenue of 9.32 billion dollars. The company also posted its daily active users were 1.32 billion on average for June 2017, an increase of 17 percent year on year.
Twitter and Comcast also announced quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street estimates.
This earnings season has been strong so far and pushed the major indices notched record highs recently.
Latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the second quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 9.9 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 4.7 percent.
On the economic front, in the week ending July 22, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 244,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week' s revised level, according to the U.S. Labor Department Thursday.
Meanwhile, Wall Street still digested a monetary policy announcement from the Federal Reserve.
The Fed on Wednesday left its benchmark interest rates unchanged as expected amid soft inflation. But the central bank signaled that it would begin shrinking its balance sheet "relatively soon."
Market analysts had said the Fed might start the balance sheet reduction as early as in September. Enditem
