NEW YORK — Stocks are edging up on Wall Street in early morning trading Wednesday after setting records the last few days. Utility companies are making the largest gains while energy companies fall with the price of oil.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average added 15 points, or 0.1 percent, to 18,363 at 10:14 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor's 500 was little changed at 2,153. The Nasdaq composite rose nine points, or 0.2 percent, to 5,032.
DRUG SALES: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries jumped $12.50, or 6 percent, to $212.40 after it gave strong projections for second quarter results and moved closer to completing a $40.5 billion purchase of Allergan's generic drug business.
JUNO JUMP: Juno Therapeutics soared $5.60, or 20 percent, to $33.35 after the regulators said its leukemia drug trials can continue. The stock had tumbled Friday after the Food and Drug Administration halted testing.
STORES SLUMP: Arts and crafts chain Michaels fell $1.63, or 5.5 percent, to $27.25 after a disappointing forecast. It said it plans to sell stock to raise money.
OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude fell 54 cents to $46.25 per barrel in New York while Brent crude, a standard for international oil prices, lost 72 cents to $47.75 a barrel in London.
EUROPE'S DAY: Britain's FTSE 100 was flat while Germany's DAX fell 0.2 percent and France's CAC 40 slipped 0.1 percent higher.
BRITISH CHANGE: Investors hope that the speedier-than-anticipated appointment of Theresa May as Britain's prime minister will help provide some clarity as to how the country wishes to proceed with its exit from the European Union.
ANALYST'S TAKE: The move has "settled the nerves" of investors, said James Hughes, chief market analyst at GKFX, helping ease the "huge uncertainty" that had been hurting markets.
JAPAN IN FOCUS: Japanese stocks extended gains on hopes that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will expand bond purchases and flood the market with money now that his Liberal Democratic Party has emerged victorious from parliamentary elections on the weekend.
ASIA ADVANCES: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.8 percent and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.7 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 0.5 percent.
BONDS AND CURRENCIES: U.S. government bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.47 percent from 1.51 percent. The euro rose to $1.1108 from $1.1067 and the dollar fell to 104.45 yen from 104.79 yen. The pound was little changed at $1.3263.