Wellington businesses are being held back by a lack of long-haul flights into Asia, a business leader says.

A new WTO ruling is bad news for Boeing.

Stocks on Wall Street see-sawed through a session noted for a stream of generally positive earnings from big-name technology, financial, and manufacturing companies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which hovered in a tight range all day, scraped in with a slight gain to close 7.86 points higher at 11,124.92.

United Technologies rose 3.7% after reporting a 20% rise in first-quarter profit driven by cost-cutting.

Stocks on Wall Street have rallied across the board for a second day, lifting the blue chip index to another 100-point plus gain.

The rebound comes after an unexpected rise in pending US home sales and more stronger than expected corporate results.

For example, homebuilder DR Horton produced a surprise quarterly profit, lifting sentiment in the housing sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 111.32 points, or 1.1%, to 10,296.85. The S&P 500 index rose 1.3% to 1103.31. All its sectors were in the black, led by industrials.

 "Honey, I told you, keep still, or I'm going to knee you in the thigh again ... "

The glam pictures of Air New Zealand’s skycouch seats, populated by snuggling models, were on every news site you looked yesterday.

US home sales rose more than forecast in November, pushing stocks on Wall Street near or above 14-month highs.

The gains were limited by a lowered reading of US gross domestic product for the third quarter. The economy advanced 2.2% against economists' expectations of 2.7% and compared with the earlier figure of 3.5%.

Home sales reached the highest level since February 2007, a sign housing is gaining strength. The data showed a rise of 7.4%, much better than the expected 3.3% rise economists had predicted.