Blockbuster profits from Apple buoyed US stocks out of the gate Wednesday, lifting sentiment as the company earnings season shapes up better than expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 83.63 points (0.64 percent) to 13,085.19 in the first 45 minutes of trade (1415 GMT) and the broad S&P 500 gained 15.26 (1.11 percent) to 1,387.23.

The tech-rich Nasdaq leaped 62.24 (2.10 percent) to 3,023.84, after heavyweight Apple, the world's biggest company by market value, allayed investors' fears that had sent shares down 2.0 percent Tuesday.

After the market closed, Apple said net income in its second fiscal quarter nearly doubled from a year ago, to $11.6 billion, thanks to record sales of iPhones and iPad tablet computers.

Apple shares shot up 10.0 percent to $616.40 on the Nasdaq.

"Apple stock is now so significant that traders look at it as almost a separate index, a leading indicator for the stock market as a whole," said Dick Green at Briefing.com.

"The jump in the stock this morning has had a broad positive impact across almost all sectors."

Analysts were busy raising their Apple price targets to above $1,000.

"We believe very strong international iPhone sales position Apple for very strong sales of an LTE iPhone 5 in the December quarter and beyond to drive strong fiscal 2013 earnings growth," Canaccord Genuity analysts said.

Dow members Boeing and Caterpillar added momentum to an earnings season that is beating market expectations, posting higher-than-anticipated first-quarter profits.

Boeing climbed 4.9 percent, but Caterpillar sank 2.6 percent as sales disappointed.

The strong earnings news offset a sharp drop in US durable-goods orders in March that clouded the outlook for the weak recovery under way from a deep recession.

The Commerce Department data showed a 48 percent plunge in commercial aircraft orders, a highly volatile segment month-to-month.

Investors braced for the outcome of the Federal Reserve's two-day policy-setting meeting in the afternoon, as well as the central bank's latest forecasts on economic growth, unemployment and inflation and a news conference with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

"If concerns are expressed about growth sustainability, we would expect steeper downside risks to global equities," said Barclays analysts.

On Tuesday, stocks closed mixed, with the Dow up 0.6 percent but the Nasdaq down 0.3 percent on Apple jitters.

The bond market fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 2.00 percent from 1.96 percent Tuesday, while that on the 30-year Treasury increased to 3.16 percent from 3.11 percent.