wall street stocks inched higher early wednesday as markets monitored the latest on talks to lift the us debt ceiling and digested mixed quarterly results from retailers following a meeting tuesday afternoon with republican leaders the white house said president joe biden was optimistic that there is a path to a bipartisan deal to lift the debt ceiling and avoid a us default if both sides negotiate in good faith and recognize that neither side will get everything it wants bigbox retailer target reported a dip in quarterly earnings but said it had made progress in cutting excess inventory that has weighed on earnings in a slowing consumer economy about 20 minutes into trading the dow jones industrial average was up 02 percent at 3307112 the broadbased sp 500 added 02 percent at 411653 while the techrich nasdaq composite index edged up 01 percent to 1234866 among individual companies discount retail chain tjx jumped 33 percent as it scored a 52 percent increase in quarterly earnings to 891 million the strength and flexibility of our offprice business model depth of our organizations expertise and our wide demographic reach all give me great confidence in our ability to continue to succeed in todays retail environment said tjx chief executive ernie herrman