NEW YORK - Stock prices are higher in early trading as investors, having gotten over a bout of economic jitters in the previous session, focused on earnings reports. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 47.96 to 13,966.18 in the opening minutes
The Nasdaq Composite Index is up 18.65 at 2,718.14 and the Standard & Poor 500 index has climbed 5.69 to 1,552.12.
Investors will still be looking at economic news, however. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke returns to Capitol Hill for the second day of his semiannual report to Congress and the Fed is scheduled to release minutes from the June meeting of its Open Market Committee. At the meeting, the central bank again left short-term interest rates unchanged and reiterated its concerns about inflation.
Early Thursday stocks appeared to be extending a partial recovery that started late Wednesday, when the Dow Jones industrial average pulled itself up from a loss of 134 points and ended with just a 53-point deficit.
Light, sweet crude rose 45 cents to $75.50 in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil closed above $75 Wednesday for the first time since last summer.
Bonds fell as stock futures pointed higher, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 5.05 percent from 5.03 percent late Wednesday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Stocks fell Wednesday amid uneasiness about Bernanke's assessment of the economy and in response to news that two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds were left essentially worthless after making bad bets on the subprime lending market.
But analysts noted there was actually little new in what Bernanke had to say, and the subprime problems are really coming as no surprise. Strong earnings from IBM Corp. released after the close of trading Wednesday appeared to give the market a further boost in confidence, so investors were optimistic early Thursday that more good profit news was in the offing.
Earnings news continued to affect investor sentiment. UnitedHealth Group Inc., among companies reporting Thursday, added to the market's upbeat mood, beating expectations and raising its forecast. Continental Airlines also turned in better-than-expected results.
High-tech companies Microsoft Inc., Google Inc. and Motorola Inc. are among the companies also reporting Thursday, along with Bank of America Corp. and Honeywell International Inc.
Beyond earnings, the Fed minutes and Bernanke's testimony will likely remain chief among Wall Street's concerns Thursday, though Bernanke's prepared text will likely be the same as Wednesday's. The market will be looking for any new clues during questioning by lawmakers.
In other economic news, the Conference Board releases its Index of Leading Economic Indicators for June at 10 a.m. EDT. The economic forecasting gauge is expected to drop by 0.1 percent, according to the consensus estimate of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR.
The Labor Department, meanwhile, will be releasing its weekly report on first-time jobless claims.
In market action abroad, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.56 percent. Hong Kong's Heng Seng Index rose 0.76 percent and the often-volatile Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.44 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.91 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.13 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.84 percent.
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