Stocks regain ground; Dow up almost 550 points.

Dow climbs 547 points on strong earnings by financial and health care companies

NEW YORK >> U.S. stocks rocketed to their biggest gain in six months Tuesday following strong earnings from major financial and health care companies as well as encouraging reports on the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 547 points.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and UnitedHealth led a parade of companies that reported profits for the third quarter that surpassed analysts’ expectations. Technology companies also jumped after taking steep losses during the market’s rout last week.

The S&P 500 index jumped 59.13 points, or 2.1 percent, its largest gain since March 26, and finished at 2,809.92. Stocks have bounced around over the last three days, and the S&P 500 is down 4.1 from its record high on Sept. 20. The Dow gained 547.87 points, or 2.2 percent, to 25,798.42.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 214.75 points, or 2.9 percent, to 7,645.49 as technology companies reversed some of their outsize losses from the last few days. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks had its biggest rally in almost two years as it surged 43.74 points, or 2.8 percent, to 1,596.84.

Even with the big gains, major indexes are still broadly lower for the month following a two-day rout last week that erased nearly 1,400 points from the Dow.

Investors were encouraged by

some good news on the economy. The Federal Reserve said output by U.S. factories, mines and utilities climbed in September despite the effects of Hurricane Florence, and the Labor Department said U.S. employers posted the most jobs in two decades in August while hiring continued to increase.

UnitedHealth, the largest U.S. health insurer and provider of privatelyrun Medicare Advantage plans, once again topped Wall Street forecasts and raised its projections for the year. The stock climbed 4.7 percent to $272.57. That suggests other health insurers are likely to report strong results in the next few weeks. Cigna advanced 3.9 percent to $211.96.

Health care products giant Johnson & Johnson

added 1.9 percent to $136.56 after it said prescription sales jumped.

Morgan Stanley rose 5.7 percent to $45.94 and Goldman Sachs added 3 percent to $221.70 after the two investment banks did better than expected in the third quarter, helped by strong performance in their trading operations and betterthan-expected revenue from stock underwriting. Morgan Stanley’s stock has fallen 12 percent this

year and Goldman has lost 13 percent.

Technology companies rose. Microsoft jumped 3.2 percent to $110.65 and Adobe rallied 9.5 percent to $260.67 after it backed its fourth-quarter profit and revenue forecasts. The stock has jumped 49 percent this year, but had slumped in recent days. Internet companies also advanced. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, rose 2.8 percent to $1,133.08.