U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 127.17 points, or 0.4%, to close at 33,129.55. The S&P 500 gained 0.81% at 4,263.75. The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.35% at 13,236.01.

Tesla up 5.9% and Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all up around 2%. Growth in US services sector slowed along with US private payrolls increasing less than expected. Equity markets viewed these results as reducing the chance of a Fed rate rise however all eyes remain on the key US jobs number expected Friday night (our time). In Washington, republicans Steven Scalise and Jim Jordan announced they will seek to replace Kevin McCarthy as Speaker for the House of Representatives.

ASX futures are up 31 points. EU markets were mixed with the STOXX 600 down slightly, FTSE down 0.77% while Germany up 0.1% and France flat. UK PM Sunak officially scrapped the northern leg of the proposed HS2 high-speed rail (from Birmingham to Manchester). The project was aimed at reducing Britain’s geographic income gap and turns a spotlight on the long delays and blown out budgets often experienced by major infrastructure projects in the country. This move is expected to free up ~£36bn which Sunak has declared will be invested into other transport areas.

Oil suffered heavy losses overnight with Brent and WTI both falling over 5% as gasoline stocks rose by 6.5m barrels, far exceeding expectations of a 200k barrel rise. Reasons for the decline reported on newswires included the overnight economic releases, flooding in NY and depressed demand after a 30% spike in prices in Q3 caused a “counter season plunge”. How long the price remains on decline is unclear however with the Saudis continuing their voluntary 1m barrel / day supply cuts until at least the end of the year.

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