Stocks up; retailers see strong gains
Solid earnings reports welcome ahead of holiday
Stocks on Wall Street closed broadly higher Tuesday, as solid company earnings helped lift several retailers ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.
The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, more than making up for its losses last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite gained 1.4%.
All the company sectors in the benchmark S&P 500 index rose, with technology stocks driving much of the rally. Chipmaker Nvidia rose 4.7%.
Financial and health care stocks also helped lift the market. Charles Schwab rose 1.6% and Pfizer added 1.9%.
Energy stocks notched the biggest gain as the price of U.S. crude oil rose 1.5%. Chevron rose 2.6%.
“Yesterday’s slow sell-off of energy was overdone,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “So you’re getting a bounce back in energy and that’s really leading the market.”
Long-term Treasury yields fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slipped to 3.77% from 3.84% late Monday.
The S&P 500 rose 53.64 points to 4,003.58. The Dow gained 397.82 points to 34,098.10. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 149.90 points to 11,174.41.
Smaller company stocks also got a boost. The Russell 2000 rose 21.20 points, or 1.2%, to 1,860.44.
Investors have very little news to review this week, but retailers and technology companies are closing out the latest round of earnings with their financial results. Best Buy surged 12.8% after it did better than analysts expected and said a decline in sales for the year will not be as bad as it had projected earlier.
Dell Technologies rose 6.8% after the computer maker reported strong third-quarter profit and revenue. Zoom Video slumped 3.9% after giving investors a weak profit and revenue forecast.
Several retailers made particularly strong gains following solid financial results. Abercrombie & Fitch surged 21.4%, and American Eagle jumped 18.2%.
Nearly every company in the S&P 500 has reported their latest financial results, according to FactSet, and the results have been mixed. Companies in the index have reported overall earnings growth of about 2%, but have also issued various warnings about weaker consumer demand and crimped sales as inflation continues squeezing consumers.
Gold for December delivery rose 30 cents to $1,739.90 an ounce. Silver for December delivery rose 18 cents $21.05 an ounce, and December copper rose 4 cents to $3.61 a pound.
The dollar fell to 141.20 Japanese yen from 142.17 yen. The euro rose to $1.0295 from $1.0240.