Stocks close higher, led by 1% rise in health care
U.S. stocks closed higher Wednesday, helped by rising oil prices, and after the Fed released minutes from its June meeting.

Federal Reserve policymakers said it was prudent to wait for more data and the Brexit vote result before raising rates, and cited a slowdown in hiring as a reason to keep rates unchanged last month, according to meeting minutes released Wednesday afternoon. The non-farm payrolls report due Friday is the key data for the week.

"The jobs number really got under their skin," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. "They have questions about whether the recovery is slowing, so the only thing that's going to lift this uncertainty is this Friday's report."



The major U.S. indexes recovered opening losses to attempt gains ahead of the minutes' release.

Health care rose more than 1 percent to lead most S&P 500 sectors higher. Year-to-date, the sector is up 1.2 percent versus the S&P's 2.7 percent gain. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB) closed nearly 2.4 percent higher.



U.S. crude settled up 1.78 percent or 83 cents, at $47.43 a barrel ahead of inventory data due in the next 24 hours. WTI fell more than 4.5 percent Tuesday.



"It's just a combination of everything (that happened) overnight just started to reverse," said Jeremy Klein, chief market strategist at FBN Securities.



The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield came off its record low of 1.321 percent to trade near 1.38 percent. The Japanese yen was near 101 against the U.S. dollar after earlier threatening to break below 100.

"It's safety over yield right now. People just want their money back and they don't necessarily care that they got much interest with it," said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. "People get concerned, especially when you see yields at all-time lows."

Global bond yields hit new record lows this week. The German 10-year bund fell to negative 0.204 percent Wednesday, while the UK 10-year gilt dropped to 0.724. Italy, Japan, and Switzerland's government bond yields also hit new bottoms; Japan's yield curve turned almost entirely negative, with the exception of the 30-year note, yielding about 0.045 percent.

Other Treasury yields came off lows and tried for gains, with the last near 0.58 percent. The 30-year Treasury yield was last trading near 2.14 percent after earlier touching a fresh record low of 2.098 percent.



The Dow Jones industrial average closed about 78 points higher with Home Depot having the greatest positive impact, while DuPont had the greatest negative impact. Earlier, the index fell 127 points.

The Nasdaq composite outperformed as shares of Facebook , Amazon.com and Apple climbed.



The Dow transports closed a touch lower after earlier falling more than 1.5 percent. J.B. Hunt led advancers, while United Continental was the greatest decliner.

The ISM non-manufacturing PMI came in at 56.5 for June versus 52.9 in May. Markit's U.S. services PMI showed marginal expansion at 51.4 in June, up fractionally from 51.3 in May.

