While you were sleeping: UPDATED Wall St snaps out of seven-day losing streak

Wall Street snapped out of a seven-session decline, bolstered by a rebound in oil prices and better-than-expected private sector US jobs data.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 41.23 points, or 0.2%, to 18,355.00, while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.24% to 5159.74. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 0.3% to 2163.79.

"There's slow movement in a market that's looking for a reason to go up or go down – it just hasn't found any," Jeff Carbone, managing partner of Cornerstone Financial Partners in Charlotte, North Carolina, told Bloomberg.

"We haven't seen that breakout that would suggest the market is based on fundamentals, it's still very tied to central banks."

The Dow's rise was after the longest decline in a year. Goldman Sachs and Apple, up 1.4% and 1.2% respectively, outweighed slides in shares of Pfizer and Merck, down 3.6% and 1.3%.

Chesapeake Energy, up 8%, and Newfield, up 7.5%, led energy stocks higher in the S&P 500, while insurer AIG rose 7.3% after its net income rose 6.3% in the second quarter. Shares of Intercontinental Exchange, which also beat expectations for earnings, rose 5.3%.

US economy 'doing well'
Chicago Federal Reserve Bank president Charles Evans says the US central bank might need to lift its interest rate this year, saying the country's real economy is doing "quite well."

"I do think that perhaps one rate increase could be appropriate this year," he says. "Even if I would prefer none until we saw inflation much more strongly."

The US labour market offered fresh signs of strength. The ADP National Employment Report showed private employers added 179,000 jobs in July, which was above economists' expectations.

Investors are now eyeing Friday's federal government nonfarm payrolls data.

Shares of Wal-Mart traded down 0.5 %. The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, the company is in talks to buy online discount retailer Jet.com, one of the most ambitious challengers to Amazon.com.

Oil rises above $US40 a barrel
Oil prices climbed more than 3% to over $US40 a barrel.

"We are not surprised to see spot prices rebounding on the gasoline draw," New York-based Tyche Capital Advisors trader in crude oil spreads Tariq Zahir told Reuters.

"But I think this will be short-lived. The bottom line is the Street in the second quarter got a little ahead of itself in calling for rebalancing of supply-demand after Canadian and Nigerian supply disruptions. 

"We are going into the third and fourth quarters with those supplies back online and refinery maintenance coming up."

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index ended the session with a gain of 0.1% from the previous close. Germany's DAX index rose 0.3%. The UK's FTSE 100 index fell 0.2%, as did France's CAC 40 index.

HSBC shares rose after the bank announced an unexpected buyback of $US2.5 billion. Shares of ING Group rose after the Dutch bank posted better than expected profit in the second quarter.

(BusinessDesk)