Wall Street closing slightly higher Wednesday

In international economic news, world markets continued to tumble Wednesday. European markets closed lower, while Asian markets ended in the red. Both Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell by as much as 1.6 percent. In corporate news, shares of Exxon Mobil, Hess, Chevron, British Petroleum (BP), and Marathon Oil surged. Shares of BlackBerry continued to climb, rising nearly 3 percent. The jump came a day after reports surfaced that the ailing smartphone maker is considering spinning off its Messenger unit into a more agile subsidiary. Facebook rose back above the $40 mark after an eMarketer report showed that the social media site is taking the mobile ad market by storm. Mobile revenue is growing rapidly for Facebook. But it is still expected to trail industry leader Google this year. The dollar gained ground against the euro and the pound, but lost ground versus the yen. Light sweet crude oil for October delivery rose $1.09 to $110.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures dropped $1.40 to $1,418.80 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 48.38, or 0.33 percent, to 14,824.51. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 4.48, or 0.27 percent, to 1,634.96. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index climbed 14.83, or 0.41 percent, to 3,593.35.