Wall Street was higher in early afternoon trade on Wednesday as General Motors (NYSE: GM) and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement in contract negotiations and the UAW called a halt to its two-day-old strike while the contract is being reviewed by the union.
The news of an agreement sent GM’s shares $1.68 higher to $36.10.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6 percent to 13,861, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.81 percent to 2,705.3 and the S&P 500 gained 0.57 percent to 1,525.86.
The Commerce Department reported that durable goods orders were 4.9 percent lower in August, a bigger decline than the 3.5 percent than had been anticipated after orders rose by 6.1 percent in July.
Transportation equipment orders dropped 11.2 percent, with commercial aircraft orders down 41 percent and orders for motor vehicles and parts dropping 6.2 percent.
On the other hand, orders for military aircraft gained 43.2 percent.
Even without the decline in the transport sector, durable goods orders would still have declined by 1.8 percent.
Investment banks saw gains on conjecture that Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) could be in talks to sell a minority share.
Bear Stearns added $4.01 to $118.25, while Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) gained $3.07 to $213.97 and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) was up $1.42 to $62.79.
In the software sector, open-source software manufacturer Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) was $1 higher to $19.89 after it said profits in its fiscal second quarter were up by 59 percent.