Investing.com – Wall Street opened modestly higher on Wednesday amid news that the White House administration would take a less harsh approach to foreign investment restrictions.
The S&P 500 gained eight points or 0.30% to 2,731.28 as of 9:45 AM ET (13:45 GMT) while the Dow composite increased 74 points or 0.31% to 24,357.66 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite rose over 21 points or 0.29% to 7,583.57.
The U.S. will use the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to protect domestic technology, according to a senior administration official and won’t invoke a national emergency law on China.
Technology stocks were among the biggest gainers after the morning bell, with Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) rising 2.58%, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) up 0.75% and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rising 0.80%. Twitter jumped 2.28% while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) inched up 0.34%.
Meanwhile AT&T (NYSE:T) rose 1.03% after it bought an ad platform, while Boeing (NYSE:BA) increased 1.51%.
Elsewhere Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) dipped 0.91% while JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) lost 0.20% and ConAgra Foods Inc (NYSE:CAG) slumped 4.71% amid news that it was buying Pinnacle Foods for $10.9 billion.
In economic news, durable goods orders in May fell unexpectedly, the Commerce Department reported while U.S. mortgage applications dropped to a fourth month low.
In Europe stocks were up. Germany’s DAX surged 129 points or 1.06% while in France the CAC 40 increased 68 points or 1.29% and in London, the FTSE 100 was up 74 points or 0.98%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 gained 31 points or 0.93% while Spain’s IBEX 35 rose 37 points or 0.39%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.30% to $1,256.10 a troy ounce while crude oil futures rose 1.86% to $71.86 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.35% to 94.69.