Wall Street was higher in early afternoon trade Wednesday even though the dollar remained weak and oil prices hovered in record high territory.
Investors expect that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates when it meets next week, but comments from some Fed officials have indicated that such a rate cut is not a certainty and even if the cut does come many investors worry that a quarter-point decline will not be enough to help the market’s current problems.
At early afternoon in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.03 percent higher to 13,311.97, while the Nasdaq Composite had added 0.26 percent to 2,604.31 and the S&P 500 was 0.12 percent higher to 1,473.28.
The Nasdaq was helped by Apple Inc (NAS: AAPL; LSE: ACP; FWB: APC), which added $2.51 to $138.01 after UBS (NYSE: UBS; SWX: UBSN; TYO: 8657) upped its target share price on the computer, iPod and iPhone maker from $175 to $182.
The tech-heavy index was also up on gains for medical device maker Cardica Inc (NAS: Cardica), which was $1.57 higher to $10.21 on European approval of a device used in heart bypass surgery.
Elsewhere among technology stocks, Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) dropped 41 cents to $35.31 on an altered earnings estimate in its fiscal third quarter.
Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC), meanwhile, dropped 37 cents to $16.51 on the news that employees are suing the mortgage lender because, they claim, the value of their retirement accounts dropped with the company’s stock decline during the current subprime crisis.