Wall Street pulls off a winner

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks managed to finish higher in tough session Wednesday on some positive earnings news, while investors shrugged off credit and housing market jitters.

The Dow Jones industrial average (up 68.12 to 13,785.07, Charts) finished 68 points higher, or 0.5 percent, after climbing more than 100 points near the open but giving up those gains and turning lower in the afternoon.

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The broader S&P 500 (up 7.05 to 1,518.09, Charts) climbed nearly 0.5 percent and the tech-laden Nasdaq (up 11.50 to 2,651.36, Charts) gained 0.3 percent.

Stock got off to a strong start, helped by better-than expected earnings from online retailer Amazon.com (up $16.93 to $86.18, Charts, Fortune 500) and Dow component Boeing (Charts, Fortune 500).

But those early gains quickly evaporated after the National Association of Realtors said that the pace existing home sales fell more than expected in June.

Adding pressure to stocks was news that private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management is experiencing difficulties tapping debt markets for the $20 billion needed for the purchase of Chrysler fanned credit market fears.

"I don't think that news regarding the Chrysler buyout financing did anything to make people feel any better," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles. "We certainly made a lot of that back, but you're operating under an extremely volatile situation right now."

Stocks experienced a sharp selloff a day earlier with the Dow plunging 226 points, marking its third-biggest loss of the year, after Countrywide Financial (down $0.43 to $30.07, Charts, Fortune 500), the nation's largest mortgage lender, said the recent subprime mortgage meltdown has begun to spread to prime-rate loans. Its CEO also said a housing downturn would probably drag into 2009.

The Federal Reserve also issued its so-called Beige Book, which measures economic conditions around the country, revealing modest economic growth in the United States, but further declines in homebuilding and real estate in most regions.

A handful of economic reports are on tap for Thursday, including durable goods orders and new home sales for June, in addition to weekly jobless claims.

On the earnings front, Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) reported better-than expected profits and revenue after the closing bell Wednesday. Shares of the company soared 7 percent higher in after-hours trading after finishing nearly 2 percent on the Nasdaq.

The third-largest U.S. oil company, ConocoPhillips (Charts, Fortune 500), reported lower results that were solidly better than expected when excluding charges related to its Venezuelan operations. Consumer products maker Colgate-Palmolive (Charts, Fortune 500) also posted earnings that topped estimates.

Beer maker Anheuser-Busch (Charts, Fortune 500) reported higher quarterly profits Wednesday, helped by higher prices, sending its shares up more than 1 percent.

The deluge of corporate earnings are set to continue Thursday as a number of companies are set to report results, including Dow components ExxonMobil (Charts, Fortune 500) and Ford Motor Co. (Charts, Fortune 500)

Market breadth was negative. Losers beat winners by 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange on volume of 2.03 billion shares. Decliners topped advancers on the Nasdaq by 5 to 4 on volume of 2.51 billion shares.

Oil prices surged above $75 a barrel Wednesday as U.S. light crude soared $2.34 to $75.90 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Treasury prices edged higher, leaving the yield on the 10-year note at 4.90 percent, down from 4.91 late Tuesday. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.

The dollar gained against the euro and the yen.