NEW YORK — Investors are seeing the kind of earnings numbers that make them feel confident about stocks.
The stock market stepped to new highs for the year Monday after a handful of earnings reports bolstered hopes that the economy is coming back sooner than many analysts had thought.
That is helping some investors move past a bout of nerves about whether expectations for the economy are stretched too far. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 96 points, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index rose but ended just shy of 1,100, having topped that level during the day.
Industrial equipment maker Eaton Corp. said it was seeing improvement in key markets and raised its full-year profit forecast. Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. managed to post a profit despite a sharp fall in revenue.
The gains came ahead of quarterly earnings released after the closing bell from Apple Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. Both wound up beating forecasts.
Apple blew past expectations because of increased sales of the iPhone, while Texas Instruments' profit and sales came in above the improved forecast the chip maker issued just last month. Share of both tech companies gained in after-hours electronic trading.
The reports are adding to investors' expectations for the technology industry. Last week, Google Inc. and chipmaker Intel Corp. posted solid earnings. Many tech companies have strong balance sheets have large amounts of cash that have enabled them to weather the recession better than companies in other industries.
Caterpillar Inc., Coca-Cola Co. and DuPont are slated to report results before the opening bell Tuesday.
A drop in the dollar also helped push commodity prices higher, which in turn helped stocks of materials and energy companies.
Investors are relieved to see better results in a broad range of industries following some downbeat news last week from major banks, which reported rising loan delinquencies.
Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston, noted that three of every four companies have topped analysts' expectations for earnings in the July-September quarter. While most have yet to report, the early results are a sign that companies are holding up better than many had predicted.
"The recovery is moving faster than analysts can sharpen their pencils and revise their estimates upward," he said.
The Dow rose 96.28, or 1 percent, to 10,092.19. The broader S&P 500 index rose 10.23, or 0.9 percent, to 1,097.91. For both indexes, it was the highest close since Oct. 3 last year.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 19.52, or 0.9 percent, to 2,176.32.
The day's advance came on the 22nd anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash known as "Black Monday," which saw the Dow plunge a record 22.6 percent on worries about interest rates and slowing economic growth.
Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 3.38 percent from 3.42 percent late Friday.
Investors grew hopeful that Federal Reserve policymakers would be able to withdraw some of the money supporting the economy as conditions improved. That could help prevent inflation, which is a worry for investors because of the huge amounts of money the government has pumped into the financial system.
The New York Federal Reserve, which carries out the central bank's market operations, said it has been preparing plans for how it could begin weaning the economy from monetary stimulus.
The dollar mostly fell against other major currencies, while gold prices rose. The ICE Futures U.S. dollar index, which tracks the dollar against other major currencies, fell 0.3 percent. It is at its lowest level since August 2008.
Light, sweet crude rose $1.08 to settle at $79.61 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB index, a measure of commodities trading, jumped 1.3 percent to its highest level of the year.
Among companies posting earnings, Eaton rose $3.47, or 5.7 percent, to $63.89, while Gannett advanced $1.06, or 8.2 percent, to $14.06.
Apple rose $1.81, or 1 percent, to $189.86 in the regular session and rose 6.7 percent in electronic trading after its report. Texas Instruments rose 77 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $23.52 and added 2 percent in late trading.
Bob Jergovic, chief investment officer at CLS Investments in Omaha, Neb., said investors are now trying to determine whether a recovery in corporate profits will continue and, if so, whether that will help the overall economy if companies are more willing to hire and make investments.
"We're in that phase where the market has really got to sort it out," he said. "Can we make that handoff from a profit recovery to an economic recovery?"
More than two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.1 billion shares compared with 1.4 billion Friday.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 6.16, or 1 percent, to 622.34.
Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.8 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.9 percent, and France's CAC-40 advanced 1.7 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 0.2 percent
0 comments:
Post a Comment