Earnings give push to Dow’s 548-point rise

A strong batch of quarterly profit reports from a trio of stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average sparked a market rebound Tuesday on Wall Street.

The better-than-expected thirdquarter results from companies in the health care and financial services businesses eased fears of an economic slowdown as interest rates move higher.

The Dow gained 548 points, or 2.2 percent, to 25,798. That rise, the bluechip’s seventh-biggest daily point gain ever and its best day since late March, helped it recoup a chunk of its nearly 1,600-point drop after declines in six of the previous eight trading sessions.

Third-quarter results from drug maker Johnson & Johnson, health insurer UnitedHealth Group and Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs pushed stock prices up broadly. The good news on profits, coupled with upbeat data on home-builder confidence, job openings and the nation’s industrial sector, reinforced optimists’ belief that the economy remains strong in the face of rising borrowing costs and fallout from trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

“I think solid earnings will stabilize the market,” says Nick Sargen, Fort Washington Investment Advisors in Cincinnati.

While it’s still early, profits for all the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 are expected to grow nearly 22 percent, putting profits on track for a third consecutive quarter of 20 percent-plus growth, earnings tracker Refinitiv says.

After a gain of 2.2 percent Tuesday, the broad stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, was 4.1 percent below its September all-time high.