2017.10.1821:32:00UTC+00Wall Street Climbs as Dow Closes Above 23,000

Wall Street advanced on Wednesday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended above 23,000 for the first time, propelled by a rise in IBM after it indicated a return to revenue growth.

The Dow notched 22,000 on Aug. 2, only 54 trading days earlier and approximately half the time it took the index to move from 21,000 to 22,000. It marks the fourth time in 2017 the Dow has reached a 1,000-point milestone. The 30-stock index is 3.4 percent higher so far in October and is poised for a seventh straight month of gains.

International Business Machines Corp (IBM) surpassed expectations on revenue and accounted for around 90 points of the day's point-gain in the blue-chip index. Shares of IBM soared 8.9 percent.

Abbot gained 1.3 percent after the firm's profit exceeded estimates on strong sales in its medical devices business.

Shares of eBay dropped four percent after its results.

The financial index climbed 0.6 percent, led by bank stocks recovering from recent post-earnings losses. Bullish calls by brokerages helped support the bank shares.

Energy shares lost ground as oil prices reduced earlier gains, while the market priced in the latest report on crude inventories from the US Energy Information Administration. The energy sector fell 0.7 percent in late trade.

Solid earnings, stronger economic growth and hopes that President Donald Trump may be able to make progress on tax reductions have supported the market rally in 2017.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.7 percent to 23,157.6. The S&P 500 edged up 0.07 percent to 2,561.26 while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.01 percent to 6,624.22.