Apple, Facebook Lift Wall Street

After a weak start following disappointing economic data from China, the S&P and Nasdaq gathered steam in late morning with gains in FAANG stocks – Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com, Netflix, Alphabet's Google – as well as Microsoft.

Apple shares closed 1 percent higher after the company made a splash by unveiling new Mac laptop computers with more powerful processor chips.

Facebook shares, under pressure recently, closed up more than 3 percent with some positive reports out including its plans to create 10,000 jobs in Europe to help build the so-called metaverse – an online world.

With just a small minority of companies having reported quarterly results so far, investors were hopeful for some good news in the days and weeks ahead.

"You're going to get a heavier slate of earnings reports this week from a diverse set of industries," said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, adding, "the path of least resistance remains higher going into earnings season for large-cap tech."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1 percent, to 35,259, the S&P 500 gained 0.34 percent, to 4,486 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.84 percent, to 15,022.

Forecast-beating results from big US lenders last week had set a positive tone for third-quarter earnings season, with analysts expecting S&P 500 earnings to show a 32 percent rise from a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.

The solid start likely helped investors shrug off uneasiness from earlier in the day after China recorded its slowest pace of economic growth in a year for the third quarter, hurt by power shortages and wobbles in the property sector.

Other top contributors to the S&P's gains were Tesla ahead of its earnings report this week, Amazon, which added 1 percent and chipmaker Nvidia, which closed up 1.6 percent.

Shares of Walt Disney closed down 3 percent after Barclays downgraded the media giant's stock to "equal weight" from "overweight." (Reuters)