<body><p>STORY: U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday, with the Dow gaining more than a quarter of a percent, the S&P 500 adding over a third of a percent and the Nasdaq climbing more than six-tenths of a percent.</p><p>A second day of solid bank earnings added momentum to an auspicious beginning to second-quarter reporting season.</p><p>BlackRock and Morgan Stanley both beat quarterly profit expectations, with shares of BlackRock advancing over 6.5% and Morgan Stanley also ending higher.</p><p>Strong earnings combined with more cooler-than-expected inflation data, in the form of June wholesale prices, helped lift stocks, says Melissa Brown, managing director of investment decision research at SimCorp.</p><p>"We saw some good earnings from the financial companies. And, you know, on top of that, there's just still the same buzz around the AI trade, around what's happening with semiconductors. And there's, we haven't really seen a lot of bad news. The inflation news has been better than expected, although I would argue still not good. So inflation is still higher than the Fed's target, even though it has come in a little bit lower than expected. But I think, you know, kind of all those things are conspiring to make it a good but not blowout day today."</p><p>Among the session's other stock moves, PayPal surged more than 17% after sources told Reuters that Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have jointly offered to acquire it.</p><p>And shares of United Airlines dipped in extended trading despite the carrier saying it expected full-year profit at the high end of its prior forecast, as the company's third-quarter outlook was short of Wall Street expectations.</p></body>
