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US stocks rise ahead of Fed statement

US stocks rose Wednesday following strong Apple earnings as investors awaited a Federal Reserve policy statement later in the day.

About 30 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 17.661.10, up 79.67 points (0.45 percent).

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 8.41 (0.41 percent) to 2,074.30, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 12.99 (0.26 percent) at 5,043.14.

Apple gained 2.1 percent after reporting that fourth-quarter profits rose 31 percent to $11.1 billion behind a 22 percent jump in revenue to $51.5 billion.

Markets were looking ahead to the 1800 GMT release of a Fed policy statement. A rate hike is considered off the table for now, but the communique will be scrutinized for clues about the future.

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"The market predominately thinks that a rate hike will wait for 2016, so any hint that the FOMC is still leaning in favor of a rate hike at the December meeting could cause some bearish upset in afternoon trading," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

"Conversely, an all-clear signal for 2015 could get the bulls running again."

American International Group gained 3.6 percent after activist investor Carl Icahn announced he had taken a large stake in the insurer and called on it to break up into three companies.

Rite Aid and Walgreens Boots Alliance both fell sharply following the announcement after the market closed Tuesday that Walgreens Boots would acquire the smaller drugstore chain Rite Aid for $9.4 billion, or $17.2 billion including debt. Rite Aid dropped 8.0 percent and Walgreens Boots lost 7.1 percent.

24/7 Wall Street cited analysts who said Rite Aid should have won a bigger premium, while investors Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com said the deal could be blocked by the Justice Department on antitrust grounds.

Twitter tumbled 9.7 percent after the messaging platform reported 320 million monthly active users in the third quarter, only modestly up from 316 million in the second quarter and 11 percent higher than a year ago.

Northrop Grumman bolted 6.3 percent higher on news it was selected by the US Air Force to build the next generation of long-range bombers. Boeing, which had teamed up with Lockheed Martin in a losing bid, fell 0.8 percent. Lockheed-Martin rose 0.4 percent.

Northrop Grumman also reported third-quarter earnings of $516 million, up 9.1 percent from the year-ago period in results that topped expectations.

Bond prices were unchanged from Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury held steady at 2.04 percent, while the 30-year remained at 2.86 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.