Wall Street rises in listless trading

UPDATED Stocks on Wall Street closed higher after a late rally in a session marked by a lack of direction.

Financial shares fell on comments that regulatory action against mortgage companies could require significant changes to industry practices. The comments came during a JP Morgan Chase conference call on its latest result, which showed a 67% jump in first-quarter profit.

They weighed on a broad swathe of financial companies linked to the mortgage industry. Among them, Wells Fargo dropped 1.9%, US Bancorp 1.5%, Bank of America 1.6% and Citigroup 1.4%. JP Morgan fell 1.1% as investors reassessed what they initially read as a positive earnings signal.

Pulling the market in the opposite direction, President Obama's speech outlining government spending cuts of $US4 trillion to reduce the deficit over 12 years was well received, except for defence stocks such as Boeing, which fell 1.3%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 7.41 points, or 0.1%, to 12,270.99 at the close (8am NZT). The S&P 500 index rose just 0.25 points to 1314.41. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6% to 2761.52.

Other markets: Europe, Asia up
Banking stocks in Europe put in a strong performance on the back of the JP Morgan result. Deutsche Bank closed up 1.6%, while ING added 1.0%.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index added 0.7% to 278.25. The UK's FTSE 100 index climbed 0.8% to 6010.44, while France's CAC-40 index rose 0.8% to 4006.23 and Germany's DAX advanced 1.1% to 7177.97.

A weaker yen helped Japanese stocks rebound following sharp losses on Tuesday linked to Tokyo's decision to raise the severity rating of the Fukushima nuclear crisis to the highest level possible.

The Nikkei Stock Average gained 0.9% to 9641.18. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 4911.0 and Korea's Kospi Composite gained 1.6% to 2121.92.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 0.7% to 24,135.03, the Shanghai Composite added 1% to 3050.40 and India's Sensex rose 2.3% to 19,696.86.

Commodities: Oil, gold rise
Oil futures rose on a government report showing lower gasoline supplies were lower than expected. Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled 86USc, or 0.8%, higher at $US107.11 a barrel in New York. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange gained $US1.96, or 1.6%, to $US122.88 a barrel.

Gold futures rose after two days of steep declines. The most actively traded contract, for June delivery, was 0.5%, or $US6.60, higher at $US1460.20 an ounce in New York. The April-delivery contract was up 0.5%, or $US7.90, at $US1460.80.

Currencies: US dollar rebounds
The dollar pared some of its losses against its rivals as investors booked profits on bets on riskier assets.

The euro was at $US1.4443 from $US1.4478 late on Tuesday. The dollar traded at ¥83.78 from ¥83.73, while the euro was at ¥121.05 from ¥120.98.

The UK pound was at $US1.6256 from $US1.6252. The dollar bought 0.8962 Swiss franc from 0.8971.