US open: Wall Street trading kicks off with some early gains

Wall Street trading got off to a positive start on Tuesday following the losses seen during the previous session, as a raft of earnings releases rolled in.

As of 1535 BST, the Dow Jones was 0.93% higher at 25,486.04, while the S&P 500 was 0.87% stronger at 2,774.76 and the Nasdaq was trading 0.94% firmer at 7,500.47.

The Dow opened more than 200 points higher on Tuesday, but sentiment amongst market participants remained weak.

Chief market analyst at IG, Chris Beauchamp, said: "From Brexit, to US/Saudi tensions and trade worries, there are plenty of reasons to hold off on buying the dip, even if earnings season has begun in strong form."

On the corporate front, investors had a slew of high-profile earnings to sift through, with shares of Morgan Stanley 3.20% higher at the bell after the bank's third-quarter numbers topped analysts' expectations.

Johnson & Johnson edged up 2.48% in early trade after the pharmaceuticals and consumer goods company's third-quarter earnings and revenue beat forecasts.

BlackRock was 5.27% in the red following the release of mixed results, while retailer Walmart inched ahead 0.68% despite cutting its fiscal year 2019 forecast for earnings per share due to the impact of the Flipkart acquisition.

Netflix and IBM are both set to report earnings after the close. As far as Netflix is concerned, market commentators said any negatives in the earnings could spark further selling in the heavily-weighted FAANG stocks.

Netflix surprised investors back in July by missing its target for subscribers by one million.

"We'll find out later today whether this was a one-off due to the long hot summer keeping people outside as opposed to indoors binge-watching episodes of The Crown," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

On the macro calendar, US industrial production increased for a fourth-straight month, but momentum slowed sharply in the third quarter.

US industrial production 0.3% in September, according to the Federal Reserve, following on from an unrevised 0.4% increase in August.

Industrial output grew at a 3.3% annualised rate in the third quarter - a marked slowdown from the 5.3% recorded back in the second quarter.

The Fed claimed industrial output in had been slowed down "slightly" by Hurricane Florence, which hit South and North Carolina halfway through the month.

Manufacturing output increased 0.2%.

Capacity utilisation for the industrial sector was also unchanged at 78.1% - 1.7% below its 1972-to-2017 average.

Elsewhere, the number of job openings in States the rose to a record 7.14m across America during the month of August, the Labor Department said on Tuesday, reflecting strong growth in the economy.

Jobs still waiting to be filled exceeded the official number of unemployed Americans. Back in March, job openings came in higher than the number of unemployed for the first time since the government began keeping records in 2000. The gap has now widened to 900,000.

Lastly, sentiment among US housebuilders unexpectedly improved in October, according to data released on Tuesday.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index edged up one point from September to 68, beating expectations for an unchanged reading.

The index of current sales conditions ticked up one point to 74 while the gauge for expectations in the next six months rose to 75 from 74 in September. Meanwhile, the index measuring buyer traffic was four points higher at 53.