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US stocks rise on oil jump, Facebook profits

New York - Wall Street stocks rose solidly on Thursday with petroleum-linked shares jumping on higher oil prices and strong Facebook earnings lifting other large technology companies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 125.18 points (0.79%) at 16 069.64.

The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 10.41 (0.55%) to 1 893.36, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 38.51 (0.86%) to 4 506.68.

Oil prices rose on news of potential talks between Russia and OPEC producers to cut output, lifting beaten-down companies tied to the oil sector.

Dow member ExxonMobil rose 2.3%, while oil-services company Baker Hughes jumped 5.6% despite reporting a $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter.

Facebook surged 15.5% after reporting that fourth-quarter profits more than doubled to $1.6bn as booming subscriber counts and higher revenues from online advertisers boosted results.

The Facebook results also provided a bounce to other growth-oriented tech names such as Netflix and Google parent Alphabet, which jumped a respective 3.6% and 4.4%.

Stocks were a bit choppy, with all three indices veering briefly into negative territory during the session.

Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, said market sentiment was mixed after Wednesday's Federal Reserve policy statement kept alive the odds of a March increase to interest rates.

"Even though the indices are up, there's still a negative overhang from the Fed not taking a March rate hike off the table," James said.

Caterpillar climbed 4.7% after forecasting earnings slightly better than expected in 2016 even as it reported a loss of $87m in the fourth quarter due to the commodity downturn.

Sports apparel maker Under Armour surged 22.6% after beating fourth-quarter forecasts for earnings and revenues. Rival Nike rose 2.7%.

Celgene tumbled 5.0% after projecting first-quarter earnings of $1.27 to $1.30 per share, barely meeting analyst expectations for $1.30 per share. Other biotech shares also fell, with Gilead Sciences losing 2.3% and Biogen 2.7%.

EBay plummeted 12.5% after projecting earnings and revenues below analyst expectations.

The market punished other companies that disappointed with earnings or outlooks: Abbott Laboratories, which makes nutrition and health care products, dropped 9.3%; cloud-computing company ServiceNow slumped 15.7%; and credit card company Discover Financial lost 8.0%.

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