Investing.com – Wall Street rose on Thursday as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to expand its oil supply cut and the U.S. tax reform bill passage seems more likely.
The S&P 500 rose 11 points or 0.45% as of 10:31 AM ET (3:31 PM GMT) while the Dow composite surged 139 points or 0.58%, reaching 24,000 for the first time. Tech heavy NASDAQ Composite increased 39 points or 0.57%.
The tax reform bill is being closely watched by investors. On Wednesday the Senate voted to begin debate on the Republican version of the bill, bringing it closer to a final vote. Republican leaders are rushing to deliver the bill before the end of the year.
Technology stocks were among the biggest gainers after the morning bell. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) surged 1.14% while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) increased 0.94% and payment processor Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) rose 2.89%. Meanwhile retail store Kroger (NYSE:KR) jumped 12.02% after it forecast a strong holiday season while semiconductor Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) rose 2.10%
Elsewhere General Electric (NYSE:GE) slipped 0.49% while AT&T (NYSE:T) fell 0.41% and Jd.Com Inc Adr (NASDAQ:JD) was down 1.44%.
OPEC members decided to expand their current production cut agreement on Thursday. Under the original terms of the deal, OPEC and 11 other non-OPEC producers, led by Russia, agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day for the first six months of 2017. The agreement was extended in May of this year for a period of nine months until March 2018 in a bid to reduce global oil inventories and support oil prices.
Stocks in Europe were mixed. In Germany the DAX surged 23 points or 0.18% while France’s CAC 40 was up four points or 0.07% and in London the FTSE 100 decreased 33 points or 0.46%. Meanwhile Spain’s IBEX 35 fell half a point or 0.01% and the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 gained two points or 0.06%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.18% to $1,279.80 a troy ounce while crude oil futures slumped 0.10% to 57.24 a barrel. The U.S dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, dove 0.49% to 92.76.