U.S. market indexes were higher Wednesday. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18202.69 for a gain of 40.75 points or 0.22 percent. The S&P 500 closed at 2144.29 for a gain of 4.69 points or 0.22 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 5246.41 for a gain of 2.58 points or 0.05 percent. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 14.29 for a loss of -0.99 points or -6.48 percent.

Wednesday’s Market Movers

Stocks were higher Wednesday with a positive earnings report from Morgan Stanley. The company beat revenue and earnings expectations. Revenue was $8.91 billion beating expectations by $740 million. Earnings per share were $0.81 beating expectations by $0.18.

On the economic calendar, housing starts and the Beige Book were the focus for the day. Other reports included the MBA Mortgage Applications, Atlanta Fed Business Inflation Expectations and the EIA Petroleum Status Report. Housing starts were slightly below expectations at 1.047 million SAAR versus the consensus of 1.180 million SAAR. For the previous month housing starts were 1.142 million SAAR. The Beige Book continued to show the pace of economic growth at modest to moderate. Mortgage applications were up 0.6 percent for the week. The inflation expectations reported by the Atlanta Fed was 1.7 percent annually. Oil inventories reported by the EIA Petroleum Status report were down -5.2 million barrels for the week.

Stocks trading actively for the day included the following:

Bank of America

Intel

Chesapeake Energy

Regions Financial

General Electric

Ford

Wells Fargo

Kinder Morgan

Transocean

In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, stocks leading gains for the day included the following:

American Express 1.95

Visa 1.51

Nike 1.13

Goldman Sachs 1.09

JPMorgan 0.96

Top sectors for the broad market were energy and financial. Technology was also higher with S&P 500 technology stocks gaining 0.19 percent for the day. Stocks leading gains in technology included the following:

First Solar 5.94

eBay 2.78

Yahoo! Inc. 2.52

Alliance Data Systems Corp. 1.76

Visa 1.51

Hewlett Packard Enterprise 1.21

Facebook 1.20

Level 3 Communications Inc. 1.19

In commodities, gold traded higher as evidenced by the SPDR Gold Trust which reported a gain of 0.69 points or 0.57 percent. The dollar was lower for the day as the U.S. Dollar Index was down 0.01 points or 0.01 percent to 97.89.

Small-Cap Stocks

In small-caps, the Russell 2000 Index closed at 1222.64 for a gain of 5.34 points or 0.44 percent. The S&P 600 Small-Cap Index was higher at 740.32 for a gain of 2.89 points or 0.39 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index was higher at 7404.70 for a gain of 18.38 points or 0.25 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index closed at 8651.24 for a gain of 50.11 points or 0.58 percent.

Other Notable Indexes

Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 1534.03 for a gain of 6.86 points or 0.45 percent; the S&P 100 Index at 950.01 for a gain of 0.91 points or 0.10 percent; the Russell 3000 Index at 1268.57 for a gain of 3.25 points or 0.26 percent; the Russell 1000 Index at 1188.30 for a gain of 2.86 points or 0.24 percent; and the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index at 603.92 for a gain of 0.51 points or 0.08 percent.