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Stocks start higher on an oil price rise and earnings beats

Published: 23:56 18 Apr 2016 AEST

Oil

Stocks opened higher on Tuesday after a good day yesterday, as a recovery in the oil price and a slew of better-than-expected earnings reports helped to boost the major indices.

Brent rallied 3.1% to US$44.30 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediary futures climbed 3.2% to US$41.10 as the market shrugged off the Doha disappointments from the weekend.

The blue-chip index, the S&P 500, was up eight points at 2,102 after an hour of trading, while the Dow Jones climbed 70 points to 18,073.

Dow constituents Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH) produced strong quarterly earnings reports, offsetting weaker reports from Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM).

In the small cap world, the Russell 2,000, was around seven points higher at 1,146.

Of the movers, XG Technolgy Inc (NASDAQ:XGTI) was a big gainer after it received an order to supply its xMax software-defined cognitive radio (SDCR) networking equipment to the U.S. Army's Intelligence Electronic Warfare Test Directorate (IEWTD). Shares climbed 12.5% to US$0.09.

Elsewhere, Transgenomic Inc (NASDAQ:TBIO) leapt almost 17.5% to US$0.69 as it unveiled its new breast cancer analysis panel this week.

It wasn’t all good news however, as Rennova Health Inc (NASDAQ) dropped 7.8% to US$0.5 as it saw revenues more than halve to US$37.9mln in 2015 compared to the year before as it continued to be hit by “challenges faced by all rehab laboratories”.

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