Stock market news: Dow jumps nearly 300 points

Specialist
trader Chris Malloy (C) gives a price to traders on the floor of
the New York Stock Exchange, October 18, 2013.
REUTERS/Brendan
McDermid

• Stocks rose Wednesday as Wall Street shook off fears
  about rising rates and signs of slowing growth.
• After a string of sharp sell-offs in recent weeks, the
  US indices are trying to avoid their worst month since the
  financial crisis.
• 
  Follow the US indices in real
  time here.
  

Stocks rose Wednesday as Wall
Street shook off concerns about signs of slowing growth
and rising rates in an eleventh-hour attempt to recover from
their worst month since the financial crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 1.18%, or nearly 300 points. The S&P 500 gained 1.2%,
and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2%. 

The benchmark S&P 500 had
lost 8.6% through October 30, and would need to finish the month
down more than more than 8.2% to suffer its biggest monthly
decline since May 2009.

“The expected better start for US
equities follows a renewed risk on tone during the Asian and
European sessions and attention will now likely turn to third
quarter earnings from Apple,” Vincent Heaney, a strategist at
UBS, said in an email.

Along with


Apple

,


Spotify

and


Starbucks

are also
expected to report after the bell Thursday.

Facebook

posted revenue and guidance that came in
slightly below
estimates,
but Wall Street seemed relieved users hadn’t fled during a
quarter punctuated by scandal.

General Motors

beat, dodging some trade-war
issues that have cast uncertainty on the auto industry.

In the latest sign of a
tightening labor market, data before the US open showed companies
added

the most jobs in eight
months

in October. The
private sector added 227,000 jobs in October, the

ADP Research Institute

said, compared with economist
forecasts for 189,000. The Labor Department is scheduled to
release its employment report Friday.

Ian Shepherdson said it isn’t
clear what ADP estimates will mean for the Labor Department
report because they likely won’t capture hits from Hurricane
Michael, while the official data will.

“We’d be very surprised to see
Friday’s headlines as strong as the ADP data, but with hurricanes
making landfall in the survey weeks in both September and August
— that has never happened before, as far as we know  — we’re
braced for anything,” Sheperdson said.

Wall Street has mirrored gloomy
markets around the world in recent weeks, with global equities
also heading for their worst October in six years.

China’s government said Wednesday
that
 manufacturing
growth
 was the
slowest in more than two years this month. The manufacturing PMI
reading came in at 50.2 in October, only slightly surpassing the
threshold that indicates expansion. A reading below 50 signals
contraction.