Technology, health care stocks lead Wall Street indexes higher

Health care and technology companies led a broad rally for stocks on Wall Street Tuesday as investors welcomed another batch of encouraging company earnings reports.

The S&P 500 rose 0.7 percent, driving the benchmark index to its fifth straight gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.7 percent.

Among the tech sector winners were Apple, which rose 1.5 percent, and software maker Adobe, which added 2.1 percent. Johnson and Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of health care products, rose 2.3 percent after raising its profit forecast for the year following the release of strong thirdquarter earnings.

“Were starting to get more earnings in for the third quarter, and so far so good,” said Tom Hainlin, national investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “So far, the results are coming in and we haven’t had a material downgrade in outlooks.”

The S&P 500 rose 33.17 points to 4,519.63. The index is now within 0.4 percent of the all-time high it set Sept. 2. The Dow gained 198.70 points to 34,457.31. The Nasdaq rose 107.28 points to 15,129.09.

Small company stocks also rose. The Russell 2000 index gained 8.07 points, or 0.4percent, to 2,275.91.

The broad gains for stocks follow a mixed start to the week as investors continue monitoring corporate earnings for clues as to how companies will move forward through the year as they deal with rising inflation, global supply chain delays and the economic recovery slowing down.

“There was a nervousness going in as we started to see some supply chain interruptions,” said J.J. Kinahan, chief strategist with TD Ameritrade.

Those supply chain problems are going to have different impacts on companies and industries, he said, including how they absorb the costs and whether they raise prices.