Stocks Opened Higher as Apple Lifted Tech

U.S. stocks opened higher on Wednesday after Apple’s strong earnings boosted technology companies and helped ease concerns over future growth of the tech sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately rose 6.85 points, or 0.03%, to 25,422.04. The S&P 500 added 3.58 points, or 0.13%, to 2,819.87. The Nasdaq Composite gained 41.84 points, or 0.55%, to 7,713.63.

Oil prices fell Wednesday morning following news of an unexpected rise in U.S. crude stockpiles. Brent crude was down 1.2% to $73.32 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate futures were trading down 1.1% at $68.01 a barrel.

Apple (AAPL) reported its Q3 2018 earnings Tuesday, posting $2.34 earnings per share on revenue of $53.3 billion, that beats analysts’ expectations. In the quarter, Apple sold 41.3 million iPhones versus 41 million smartphones in the same quarter last year. Apple’s guidance for Q4 was between $60 billion and $62 billion in revenue.

The U.S. economy created 219,000 new jobs in July.Companies in the private sector added 219,000 new employees to their payrolls in July, showing that firms are managing to fill a record number of job openings despite growing shortages of skilled labor.

Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google is planning a censored version of its search engine for China that will block websites and certain search terms, The Intercept reported on Wednesday citing internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is planning to invest $5 billion to build a factory in China, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing a source. Tesla is considering raising funds in China to finance at least a portion of the investment for the factory, the report said.