NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Wall Street turned its eyes away from the world markets' troubles Tuesday and focused on good news from home, where low inflation and a batch of solid corporate earnings helped the stock market score strong gains at the start of trading.
Shortly before 10 a.m. the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 50.98 points to 9,147.19. Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached 89 million shares with advances leading declines 1,351 to 859.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.55 to 1,967.08 and the S&P 500 index gained 4.93 to 1,170.12.
The bond market was flat to slightly higher, boosted by the release of tame inflation data but plagued by concerns that flight-to-quality buying from international investors would dry up now that Russia has secured a multibillion dollar aid package. The benchmark 30-year Treasury bond rose 3/32 of a point in price, for a yield of 5.68 percent.
The dollar traded slightly higher against the Japanese yen and the German mark as investors remained cautious amid growing uncertainty over Tokyo's economic reforms and calmer Russian financial markets.
It's earnings time again
In stocks, a series of strong earnings reports from major companies and expectations for more to follow helped propel the market higher.
Investors rewarded shares of Dow component J.P. Morgan (JPM), pushing them up 2-7/16 to 128-7/16 after the venerable Wall Street institution reported a second-quarter profit of $2.36 a share, including a gain. Analysts had expected the company to earn $1.90 a share in the quarter.
Other financial powerhouses were less fortunate, however, with Merrill Lynch (MER) losing 4-3/16 to 103-3/4 after reporting record earnings of $1.33 a share, but failing to meet expectations of $1.34 a share. And shares of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) fell 2-9/16 to 60-1/2 even after the company said it earned a record $1.05 a share in the second quarter, beating forecasts for earnings of $1.02 a share.
Among other Dow components, strike-plagued General Motors (GM) saw its earnings tumble to 52 cents per diluted share in the second quarter from $2.67 a year earlier. Its stock price, however, moved in the opposite direction, rising 1-9/16 to 70-7/16.
And Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) climbed 1-1/16 to 72-7/8 after the consumer products maker said it earned 74 cents per diluted share in the second quarter, matching market expectations.
Finally, among the day's other market movers, shares of Cendant (CD) continued to plunge, losing 3, or almost 16 percent, to 15-7/8 after the real estate and travel services conglomerate said accounting irregularities at its CUC International division were even worse than had been suspected and would cause Cendant's earnings for the past three years to be restated. 
-- by staff writer Malina Poshtova Zang
|
