shares of salesforce inc and merck are trading higher thursday afternoon leading the dow jones industrial average rally the dow djia is trading 578 points 17 higher as shares of salesforce inc crm and merck mrk are contributing to the bluechip gauges intraday rally salesforce incs shares have climbed 1049 60 while those of merck are up 459 54 combining for an approximately 99point boost for the dow nike nke  apple inc aapl  and visa v are also contributing significantly to the gain a 1 move in any of the indexs 30 components results in 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