Wall Street Roars Higher; Dow Soars 200 Points

FOX Business: The Power to Prosper

The Dow looked to end its six-day losing streak with a bang on Friday, roaring as much as 200 points higher, led by banking behemoth J.P. Morgan Chase.

Today's Markets

As of 3:30 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 195 points, or 1.6%, to 12768, the S&P 500 rallied 21.5 points, or 1.6%, to 1356 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 44 points, or 1.5%. to 2910.

In a sign of the breadth of the rally, all but one Dow component was in the green and 23 were up by at least 1%. J.P. Morgan zoomed higher by more than 5%, contributing 14 points to the Dow on its own.

Looking at the broader markets, financials were performing the best, followed by industrial, material and consumer disrectionary stocks. The utility sector was the only S&P 500 sector to post gains of less than 1%.

J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) kicked off earnings season for the big U.S. banks, reporting more details on its "White Whale" trading loss and revealing issues with its first-quarter release.

The biggest U.S. bank by assets posted second-quarter earnings of $1.21 a share on sales of $22.9 billion. Analysts expected it to earn 70 cents on $21.79 billion. It wasn't immediately clear whether the two figures were comparable. The bank said it took a $4.4 billion pre-tax trading loss from its Chief Investment Office. It also said it will restate its first-quarter results after finding information relating to its CIO that “suggests that certain individuals may have been seeking to avoid showing the full amount of the losses in the portfolio during the first quarter.”

Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) released results as well, narrowly topping estimates with a 17% jump in second-quarter earnings amid soaring mortgage banking profits.

Traders also got data on the Chinese economy on the day. The world's No. 2 economy grew at an annualized pace of 7.6% in the second quarter, significantly slower than the 8.1% growth rate from the first three months of the year.

U.S. producer prices rose 0.1% in June, according to the Labor Department, surprising economists who were expecting a 0.5% decline. Excluding the food and energy components, prices were up 0.2% , in line with expectations.

A preliminary reading on consumer sentiment for the month of July checked in at 72, lower than both the 73.4 expected and a final June reading of 73.2, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan. The reading was the lowest since December 2011.

Commodities were broadly higher. The benchmark crude oil contract traded in New York rose $1.18, or 1.2%, to $87.10 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline gained 0.35% to $2.816 a gallon.

In metals, gold jumped $27.70, or 1.7%, to $1,592 a troy ounce.

Foreign Markets

The Euro Stoxx 50 rose 1.4% to 2259, the English FTSE 100 gained 1% to 5666 and the German DAX jumped 2.2% to 6557.

In Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 edged up by 0.05% to 8724 and the Chinese Hang Seng rose 0.35% to 19093.