NEW YORK - Reassuring comments from a Federal Reserve official and better earnings from two big retailers helped push the stock market higher Tuesday.
Stock indexes wobbled between gains and losses in early trading, then took a turn higher just before noon. That’s when news crossed that James Bullard, head of the Federal Reserve’s St. Louis branch, told an audience in Germany that the Fed should stick with its bond-buying effort to bolster the economic recovery.
“Those words were a salve for investors’ nerves,” said Lawrence Creatura, a fund manager at Federated Investors. Other Federal Reserve officials have recently talked about scaling back the program. “There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding this issue. And uncertainty and investors aren’t always a happy match,” Creatura said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 52.30 points to 15,387.58, a gain of 0.3 percent.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up 2.87 points to 1,669.16, an increase of 0.2 percent. Both the Dow and the S&P are at record highs. The Nasdaq composite rose 5.69 points to 3,502.12, a 0.2 percent gain.
More stocks rose than fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume was average at 3.5 billion shares.
Many investors were already looking ahead to today, when the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its most recent policy meeting and Chairman Ben Bernanke will go before Congress to discuss his outlook for the U.S.economy.
“I think a lot of people are sitting on their hands waiting to see what the Fed says,” said Michael Binger, senior portfolio manager at Gradient Investments in Minneapolis, Minn.
Binger said some investors believe the Federal Reserve’s support is the main reason the stock market has soared to all-time highs. If the Fed pulls back, they reason, the market’s long rally would come to an end.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. gained 1.4 percent. Shareholders of the country’s biggest bank voted to allow Jamie Dimon to keep his two titles, chief executive officer and chairman of the board. Groups had pushed to split the two jobs, a drive that gained momentum from a multi-billion trading loss last year. The bank’s stock rose 73 cents to $53.02.
Home Depot surged 2.5 percent. The retailer reported an 18 percent increase in quarterly income as the housing market continued to recover. Home Depot rose $1.95 to $78.71.
Among other companies posting quarterly results, AutoZone jumped 5 percent. Better sales and shrinking costs helped the auto-parts company beat analysts’ earnings forecasts. AutoZone shares jumped $18.79 to $427.84.
It has been another solid earnings season for big companies, with corporate profits hitting all-time highs even as revenue barely rises.
Seven of every 10 companies in the S&P 500 have trumped Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, according to S&P Capital IQ. First-quarter earnings are on track to climb 5 percent over the year before. Revenue is expected to rise just 1 percent.
In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 1.93 percent from 1.96 percent late Monday.
In commodities trading, crude oil sank 55 cents to settle at $96.16 a barrel.
The price of gold fell $6.50 to $1,377.60 an ounce, extending a slump that has knocked gold down 18 percent this year. Tame inflation, a stronger dollar and a surging stock market have undermined gold’s appeal.
Business, Pages 26 on 05/22/2013