Stocks rise on Wall Street as investors focus on earnings
Markets in Europe, Asia tick higher
NEW YORK, Oct 18, (AP): US stocks rose on Wall Street Tuesday and added to weekly gains for major indexes that have been mired in a broad slump amid inflation and recession concerns.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% as of 11:37 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 131 points, or 0.4%, to 30,319 and the Nasdaq rose 0.1%.
Industrial companies and banks made solid gains. Lockheed Martin jumped 6.1% after reporting strong third-quarter earnings. Bank of America rose 2.1%.
The gains have softened after an earlier jump that sent almost all of the stocks in the S&P 500 higher. Its part of the latest knee-jerk motion in a market that has been moving erratically in recent weeks. Major indexes are still stuck in a bear market, which is when they’ve fallen at least 20% from their most recent all-time highs.
“High volatility is normal around the bottom of a bear market,” said Jeff Buchbinder, equity strategist for LPL Financial. “One reason we may be seeing markets hang in there a little bit better is that the narrative has switched to earnings from inflation and the Federal Reserve.”
Bond yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, rose to 4.05% from 4.01% late Monday. The yield on the 2-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for future Federal Reserve action, rose to 4.47% from 4.45% late Monday.
The latest round of corporate earnings are a big focus for investors this week with little economic data expected. Investment bank Goldman Sachs rose 1.7% after delivering results that beat estimates. Streaming sports service FuboTV jumped 1.4% after giving investors an encouraging third-quarter update.
Health care giant Johnson & Johnson was mostly unchanged after reporting solid financial result s, but a narrowed forecast as it deals with a strong U.S. dollar cutting into sales outside the U.S.
Streaming entertainment giant Netflix and United Airlines are on deck to report their results later Tuesday. American Airlines, Union Pacific and American Express will report their results later this week.
Corporate earnings are the latest pieces of information Wall Street can use to try and get a better sense of the economy’s path ahead amid stubbornly hot inflation and growing recession fears. The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates in an effort to make borrowing more difficult and slow economic growth. The goal is to hit the brakes on the economy just enough to tame inflation, but the strategy risks slowing the economy too much and causing a recession.
Markets in Europe and Asia rose. A release of China’s most recent economic growth figures due out Tuesday was postponed, removing one factor that had been expected to drive trading. No specific reason was given, but the GDP report might have conflicted with the confident tone of a Communist Party congress being held in Beijing.
Europe
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX rose 1.3% while the CAC 40 in Paris and the FTSE in London each climbed 0.9%.
Asia
In Asian trading on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged 1.8% to 16,914.58. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.1% to 3,080.96.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1.4% to 27,156.14 and the Kospi in Seoul climbed 1.4% to 2,249.95. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 advanced 1.7% to 6,779.20. India’s Sensex rose 0.8%.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil gave up 12 cents to $85.34 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 15 cents to $85.46 per barrel on Monday.
Brent crude, the basis for pricing international oil, was essentially unchanged at $91.17 per barrel.
Currencies
The dollar was trading at 149.13 Japanese yen, up from 148.98 yen. Senior Japanese officials have indicated they might intervene in the market to try to stem volatility and support the yen, which has weakened sharply against the dollar this year.
The euro fell to 98.31 cents from 98.41 cents. The soaring dollar is now worth more than the euro for the first time in 20 years.