NEW YORK, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Wall Street turned higher Wednesday as oil prices continued to decline and legislation to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may send message of confidence to investors.
Crude continuously retreated Wednesday as Hurricane Dolly looked likely to spare key oil installations in the Gulf of Mexico. Light, sweet crude dropped 1.94 U.S. dollars to 126.48 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Home Depot led retailers' shares higher.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, jumped more than 15 percent each. The House of Representative is set to vote on a rescue plan for the companies on Wednesday.
Investors also tried to figure out the health of the U.S. economy amid a raft of earnings news on Wednesday. Warehouse retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. released a profit warning, while Dow Jones components McDonald's Corp. and AT&T Inc. all posted mostly upbeat results.
McDonald's said strong overseas sales contributed to second-quarter profit, which easily surpassed Wall Street expectations. AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, said quarterly profit rose amid a big spike in wireless subscribers.
However, Costco said fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year profit will miss Wall Street estimates due to high energy costs. Costco dropped more than 10 percent in morning trading.
The Dow Jones rose 43.15 to 11,645.65. Broader indexes also perked up. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 9.23 to 1,286.23, and the Nasdaq rose 30.48 to 2,334.44.
