US stocks lifted by P&G, AmEx earnings

Wall Street stocks rose early Friday following mostly strong earnings from Procter & Gamble and others amid lingering unease after the prior session's losses.

About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 25,519.17, up 0.6 percent.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 2,784.53, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.9 percent to 7,550.34.

Shares of most of the large companies that reported earning pushed higher, including P&G, up 6.2 percent, American Express, up 3.0 percent and Honeywell International, up 1.1 percent.

But analysts at Charles Schwab said markets still appeared "skittish" after Thursday's session, which concluded with the S&P 500 losing 1.4 percent amid worries over higher US interest rates, US-Saudi relations after the suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and unease over the eurozone due to Italy's controversial budget plans.

"It almost goes without saying that how the market opens today won't be as important as how it closes," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

DowDuPont fell 1.0 percent after it wrote down $4.6 billion in assets in its agricultural unit, which has suffered due to weak sales in the US and Latin America.