Investing.com – Wall Street traded higher on Wednesday as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax cuts were confirmed and investors continued to wade through the downpour of earnings in a session with no major economic reports.
At 11:24AM ET (15:24GMT), the Dow Jones rose 45 points, or 0.21%, the S&P 500 gained 7 points, or 0.30%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 11 points, or 0.18%.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed Wednesday that the Trump administration’s tax plan will include a 15% corporate tax rate.
The aim is to cut the taxes paid by small businesses, rather than create a loophole for the rich, he said in an interview with CNBC ahead of the official announcement with National Economic Director Gary Cohn in a joint news conference at around 1:30PM ET (17:30GMT).
Mnuchin also indicated that the White House has shelved the so-called border adjustment tax for now, saying it doesn't work "in its current form."
Also on the Hill, Reuters reported that Congress was moving closer to crafting a deal to avoid shutting down at the stroke of midnight on Friday, although the details and even broad strokes of an agreement were still murky.
On the company front, Dow components reporting on Wednesday gave mixed results at Boeing (NYSE:BA) slumped 1.6% after a 7.3% decline in revenue was worse than expected, but United Technologies (NYSE:UTX) managed to rise around 0.9% on the back of a 17.8% jump in profits that beat consensus.
On huge negative moves in earnings, shares in United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) crashed around 25% as the firm disappointed on both the top and bottom line, while Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) led the decliners on the S&P 500 with losses of around 15% after its own earnings report.
On the upside, shares of Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) soared 11% on Wednesday after the microblogging service reported better-than-expected user growth in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, oil prices recovered on Wednesday after U.S. crude stockpiles fell by 3.6 million barrels, much more than the 1.7 million forecast.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.73% to $49.92 by 11:25AM ET (15:25GMT), while Brent oil rose 0.27% to $52.71.