US open: Stocks trade higher, Nasdaq quickly reclaims early losses

Wall Street stocks all traded higher at the open on Wednesday, reversing some early losses for the Nasdaq.

As of 1530 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.56% at 34,010.85, while the S&P 500 was 0.43% firmer at 4,152.73 and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.35% stronger at 13,834.50.

The Dow opened 189.55 points higher on Wednesday, reclaiming some of the losses recorded in the previous session.

Netflix shares slumped 7.88% in early trading after the video streaming giant posted quarterly subscriber additions that fell well and truly short of estimates on the Street as the pandemic-fuelled demand seemingly began to fade away.

Elsewhere on the corporate front, Verizon stock traded higher after topping first-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while fast-food chain Chipotle was slated to report its most recent quarterly numbers later on in the day.

A handful of stocks tied to an economic reopening were also performing well during the morning's session, with United Airlines up about 1.3% after plunging 8.5% on Tuesday, while Norwegian jumped more than 5% and Carnival and Royal Caribbean rose roughly 2% each.

On the macro front, total mortgage applications surged 8.6% week-on-week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, marking the first overall increase in weekly applications since the tail end of February.

The increase was mostly driven by a drop in the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances to 3.20% from 3.27%.