Investing.com - U.S. shares rose on Tuesday as earnings tumbled in and on mixed economic figures on manufacturing and home purchases and as investors awaited more on the policy from from the Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump
Wall Street traded slightly higher on Tuesday amid a deluge of earnings as stocks continued their recent range-bound tendency.
The Dow Jones gained 0.61%, the S&P 500 rose 0.69%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded up 0.91%.
Concerns that Trump's trade policies may unsettle long-standing supply chains and business models has led to some caution among investors, but the prospects of tax cuts and higher federal spending has raised hopes for a renewed rally in shares in the coming weeks and months.
On the economic front, Markit’s preliminary manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for January beat expectations as new orders expanded at their quickest pace since September 2014. December existing home sales missed expectations, but still closed out 2016 with their best year in a decade.
In earnings, Verizon (NYSE:VZ) led the losses, tumbling more than 4% as subscriber additions fell short of estimates. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:NYSE:JNJ) followed suit with shares falling more than 2% after fourth quarter revenue of $18.11 billion, missed estimates for $18.42 billion.
3M (NYSE:MMM) was the third biggest decliner on the Dow, slumping around 1.6%, despite better-than-expected numbers as investors appeared to be wary of its first year-on-year decline in sales at its consumer division since 2009.
Travelers (NYSE:TRV) also saw shares slide more than 1% despite beating consensus as the insurer’s chief executive officer Alan Schnitzer noted disappointing underwriting results in personal auto insurance.
Clearly breaking the trend in blue-chip earnings, DuPont (NYSE:NYSE:DD) led advancers on the Dow with gains of nearly 4% as the producer reported earnings-per-share of $0.51, beating consensus by nine cents, and it continued to have constructive discussions with regulators in key jurisdictions over its merger with Dow Chemical (NYSE:NYSE:DOW).