US open: Stocks climb after positive ADP employment report, crude bounces

Markets were rising on Wednesday after a better-than-expected US ADP employment report.

As of 16:03 the Dow Jones Industrial Average was putting on 1.02% to 17,481.30, the S&P 500 rose by 0.69% to hit 2,016.43 and the Nasdaq advanced 0.69% to reach 2,016.43.

The ADP's tally of new private sector payrolls in December revealed a rise of 241,000 on the month, a bit higher than the consensus expectation for 225,000.

Barclays Research said: “The frequent and significant revisions to the ADP employment report limit its usefulness in short-term forecasting; however, we view this morning’s report as consistent with our outlook for private payroll gains of 240k in the employment report from the Labor Department this Friday.”

Senior US economist for Capital Economics Paul Dales added: “In any case, other evidence from the business surveys and jobless claims data suggest that labour market conditions remained strong enough to warrant a 300,000 rise in payrolls last month.

“As such, we think December’s Employment Report will be full of new year cheer.”

Crude futures were advancing early in the day as WTI figures, opening up around 0.65% up to $48.29 a barrel, while Brent futures opened higher by about 1.103% to $51.67 a barrel.

Alpari UK market analyst Craig Erlam said: “I’ll be very surprised if the $50 level holds until the end of the day, let alone in the longer term. The fact of the matter is that there is still an oil supply glut and demand isn’t there. Unless one of these factors change, oil prices are going to remain very heavy.

“The decline may slow and probably will but I would not bet against both WTI and Brent breaking through $40 in the coming weeks.”

Over on COMEX, gold futures were falling 0.62% to $1,211.90 per ounce while the dollar was prevailing against the pound, the yen and the euro.

The yield on a benchmark US 10-year Treasury was climbing by six basis points to 2.00%.

Meanwhile, in the corporate world Keurig Green Mountain was soaring by 5.31% while Helmerich & Payne was plummeting 3.58%.