NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Stocks held their own Tuesday as investors shrugged off rising oil and looked ahead to what they hoped would be a solid crop of corporate earnings reports.
The Dow Jones industrial average (down 5.83 to 10,513.89, Charts) ended just below unchanged while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose about 0.2 percent.
The Nasdaq composite (up 7.73 to 2,143.15, Charts) climbed nearly 0.4 percent, thanks to strength in Internet shares and software.
"There's a confidence in earnings that is offsetting the other trends," said Tony Dwyer, a market strategist at FTN Midwest Securities. "If $62 oil, a downgrade of GM and bombings in London can't derail the markets, what can?" he added, referring to events of recent weeks and months.
Citing recent strong earnings reports, solid consumer spending numbers and brisk retail sales, Som Dasgupta, head of equity trading at PNC Financial Services Group, agreed, noting: "The stage is set for equities to push up from here."
U.S. light crude oil for August delivery jumped $1.70 to settle at $60.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a gain of nearly 3 percent that had hurt stocks for much of the day.
But the market managed to stabilize in the afternoon, with the tech-fueled Nasdaq pushing higher.
Investors scooped up semiconductor shares ahead of earnings from Advanced Micro Devices (up $0.36 to $19.37, Research) due Wednesday.
The Philadelphia semiconductor (up 4.50 to 456.10, Charts) index, or the SOX, gained 1 percent.
In addition to AMD, Apple Computer (up $0.14 to $38.24, Research) and General Electric (down $0.01 to $35.10, Research) are due to report results later this week, and the hope is that earnings overall will come in better than expected.
First Call currently forecasts that earnings will rise around 7.5 percent in the quarter versus a year ago, the slowest earnings growth in three years.
Early reports have been upbeat, starting with Alcoa (down $0.03 to $27.66, Research) last week. After the close Monday, biotech Genentech (Research) continued that trend, reporting higher profits that topped forecasts and issuing an upbeat outlook for its current fiscal year.
PepsiCo (up $0.75 to $54.60, Research) reported earnings early Tuesday of 70 cents a share, up from a year earlier and above forecasts.
In other news Tuesday, TD Banknorth (down $0.86 to $29.10, Research), a New England banking company, said it agreed to buy Hudson United Bancorp (up $4.14 to $41.64, Research), a Northeastern banking company, for $1.9 billion.
Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners outpaced losers by nine to seven on volume of 1.45 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers edged decliners by a narrow margin on volume of 1.65 billion shares.
Treasury prices slumped, raising the yield on the 10-year note to about 4.14 percent from 4.09 percent late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
In currency trading, the dollar slumped versus the euro and yen.
COMEX gold lost 80 cents to settle at $427.10 an ounce.
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