US open: Wall Street follows in Europe's footsteps with early gains

Wall Street trading began with some early gains on Thursday, with all major indices taking their cues from the strong gains seen across Europe, FTSE 100 aside, and some solid earnings from the likes of DowDuPont and Fitbit.

At 1525 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.70% to 25,290.73, while the S&P 500 was 0.66% higher at 2,729.61 and the Nasdaq was trading 1% higher at 7,379.19.

Donald Trump tweeted that trade discussions with China were "moving along nicely" and that he planned to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the upcoming G-20 summit after the two had a "very good" talk.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told visiting US politicians earlier in the day that China and the United States could overcome their differences if they were capable of working together in a spirit of mutual respect.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said: "Onwards and, hopefully, upwards is the collective feeling in the markets on Thursday as investors bid farewell to red October and welcome a new month that will ideally be more positive."

"The final day of the month was far more positive than the 22 days, or so, that preceded it which many will hope is a sign of better things to come. The timing of this sudden shift was curious, with some suggesting it may have been more a case of month end moves, perhaps some portfolio rebalancing, but I guess that will become more clear in the coming days."

In corporate news, Spotify shares were down 7.22% despite the music streaming service posting a 5% rise in premium subscribers for the third quarter.

Fitbit shares surged more than 25.48% in early trade after its third-quarter earnings late on Wednesday surpassed analysts' expectations.

Chemical company DowDuPont rallied 8.09% on the back of strong quarterly earnings and news of a new $3bn share buyback, while entertainment group AMC Networks slipped 1.61% the open despite its quarterly earnings beating analysts' expectations.

Avon shares picked up 5.75% after the cosmetics company’s third-quarter profit and sales fell short of expectations and online furniture and homeware retailer Wayfair was 13.10% lower at the open after it reported a bigger-than-expected third-quarter loss.

Still to come, tech giant Apple is due to report earnings after the closing bell.

Meanwhile, on the data front, figures from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 214,000 last week versus expectations for a drop to 213,000. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 to 216,000.

The four-week moving average came in at 213,750, up 1,750 from the previous week's average, which was revised up by 250.