led by strong returns for shares of salesforce inc and merck the dow jones industrial average is up thursday afternoon shares of salesforce inc crm and merck mrk have contributed to the indexs intraday rally as the dow djia was most recently trading 34 points or 01 higher salesforce incs shares are up 522 or 31 while those of merck have climbed 273 31 combining for an approximately 52point bump for the dow procter  gamble pg  walmart wmt  and verizon communications inc vz are also contributing significantly to the gain a 1 move in any one of the 30 components of the benchmark equates to a 659point swing editors note this story was autogenerated by automated insights an automation technology provider using data from dow jones and factset see our market data terms of use