Stocks higher as Tuesday hot streak continues

Diposkan oleh silent aja 11:59 PM Post a Comment

Click image for more market data

The bulls on Wall Street love Tuesdays. U.S. stocks kicked off the session in the green, leaving the market on track for a seventh straight Tuesday gain as investors look ahead to a pivotal Federal Reserve decision.

The Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 advanced solidly, while the Nasdaq sported more modest gains. U.S. stocks ended mostly higher on Monday after a roller coaster day.

April has been a tough month for investors, with the Nasdaq taking a sharp dive as investors soured on many tech and bio tech stocks. The S&P and Dow are up for the month, but only barely.

So far, the bullish Tuesday trend on Wall Street is continuing. The S&P 500 has returned almost 9% year-to-date on Tuesdays, rallying all but two occasions, according to David Lutz, managing director at Stifel Nicolaus.

Attention is beginning to shift to the Fed, which is set to wrap up a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. The central bank is likely to dial back its bond buying program by another $10 billion in a bid to wean Wall Street off its easy money policies.

'I find it encouraging that despite this shift away from QE, markets are close to unchanged on the year. This has been no small feat,' Peter Kenny, CEO of financial technology firm The Clear Pool Group, wrote in a note to clients.

Meanwhile corporate earnings reports continue to roll in. Sprint popped 7% as investors cheered a narrower than expected loss and strong sales.

Related: Fear & Greed Index still gripped by fear

Shares of BP nudged 2% higher after the oil and gas firm hiked its dividend. Retailer Coach dropped 9% after the company reported weaker sales, even as it beat on profits.

'$COH tanking sales blamed on competition from $KORS & $KATE. Perhaps, but may also reflect weakness of mass-affluent discretionary spending,' said StockTwits user mohannadaama.

Herbalife struggled to find a post-earnings bounce despite logging stronger than expected profits and sale and announcing plans to scrap its dividend in favor of more stock buybacks. The company is the subject of several government investigations into its business practices.

Related: Herbalife profits continue to surprise

EBay and Twitter are among the major companies that will share results after today's close. Twitter struggled yesterday in trading, ending the day down.

Aside from earnings, shares of Nokia rose 5% after the tech company announced a new CEO and plans to spend billions on dividends and share buybacks. Nokia has just finalized the sale of its handset division to Microsoft , allowing it to focus on its networks business.

Inflight Internet provider Gogo tumbled almost 20% after AT&T revealed plans to launch a competing service for airplane Wifi.

'$GOGO If u own Gogo only decision today is whether to take a Valium or Xanax as day progresses,' StockTwits user MYBOYFRESH said.

Housing stocks such as Lennar were little changed after the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index of U.S. home prices was unchanged in February, matching forecasts. Prices climbed 12.9% year-over-year, nearly mirroring estimates.

Despite the improvement in the weather, the Conference Board said U.S. consumer confidence ticked down to 82.3 in April from 83.9 in March. Economists had been banking on a more modest dip to 83.

Related: CNNMoney's Tech30

European markets were higher in morning trading. Russian stocks rose and the ruble firmed against the dollar as investors shrugged off the latest round of U.S. and EU sanctions imposed this week over the crisis in Ukraine. The sanctions weren't as severe as expected.

The British pound pushed higher, trading at its highest level against the U.S. dollar since August 2009, as GDP data showed U.K. growth accelerated to 0.8% in the first quarter.

Asian markets closed mixed. The two major indexes in China logged gains, while the Nikkei in Japan declined by 1%.