Earnings and Data Drive Gains Across the Board

U.S. markets surged following positive economic data out of China and after September’s U.S. existing home sales reached a new one year high. Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) strong quarterly results were more than enough to overcome disappointing numbers from Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) driving the markets to strong gains on the day.

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Nymex crude oil gained $0.10 to settle at $82.81 per barrel up 0.12% for the third gain in four sessions. Gold prices climbed as well gaining $7.0 to settle at $1,251.70 per ounce up 0.56%.

The major averages all saw strong gains with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:DJI) up 215.14 points or 1.31% to close at 16,614.81 bringing the index back into positive territory for the year.  The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:GSPC) jumped 1.96% to close at 1,941.28 up 37.27 points.

Apple helped the NASDAQ Composite (NASDAQ:IXIC) to surge 2.4%, the largest intraday percent gain since January 2013 gaining 103.41 points to close at 4,419.48.  The NASDAQ 100 saw a similar jump climbing 2.62% to close at 3,971.39 after gaining 101.31 points.

The Small cap Russell 2000 gained 17.88 points or 1.63% to close at 1,112.85 and the Fox50 gained 20.44 points to close at 1,371.77 up 1.51%.