Leading shares opened sharply higher, following the lead of stocks in Europe.
On what is set to be a fallow day for economic news, investors returned to the market following yesterday's shake-out, pushing the benchmark S&P 500 up 17 points to 2,058 and the more narrowly-based Dow Jones average up 130 points to 17,672.
Further down the food change, mid-caps are doing even better, judging by the performance of the S&P 400, which was up 15 points at 1,434.
Small-caps also joined the party, propelling the Russell 2,000 index eight points higher at 1,101.
“There wasn’t much for the US markets to work with this afternoon,” said London-based financial analyst Connor Campbell at spread betting firm Spreadex, “though a statement from Fed vice-chair William Dudley, who claims he still judges ‘the balance of risks to [his] inflation and growth outlooks to be tilted slightly to the downside’, likely reassured investors that a rate hike won’t be happening any time soon.”
Teladoc, Inc (NYSE:TDOC), a provider of on-demand health care advice, topped expectations for customer visits to its services in the first quarter. In all, 240,000 visits were recorded, up 61% on the 149,000 visits recorded in the corresponding period of 2015, and higher than the company's own guidance range of 220,000 to 230,000.
The shares perked up, advancing 9.4% to $11.27.
A rise of twice that level was recorded by Alliance Fiber Optic Products (NASDAQ:AFOP), as it rose $2.98 to $18.44, after Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) made an agreed bid worth $18.50 a share.
The maker of high-performance passive optical components has been valued by the glass and ceramics manufacturer at around $305mln.