Stocks rose on Wall Street on Wednesday after corporate earnings reports got off to a good start.
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 61.66 points to 13,390.51. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 3.87 points to 1,461.02, and the Nasdaq composite rose 14 to 3,105.81.
Stocks are facing their first big challenge of the year as companies start to report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012. Throughout last year, analysts cut their outlook for earnings growth in the period and now expect them to rise by 3.21 percent, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
“Maybe earnings expectations were a little too low,” Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research, said. “You don’t need to have great earnings, you just need to beat those expectations” for stocks to rally, he said.
Early indications were decent. The aluminum maker Alcoa reported late Tuesday that it swung to a profit for the fourth quarter, with earnings that met Wall Street’s expectations. The company brought in more revenue than analysts had expected, and the company predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Alcoa is usually the first Dow component to report earnings every quarter.
Despite the better revenue number, Alcoa’s stock performance Wednesday was lackluster. It traded higher for part of the day, then ended down 2 cents at $9.08 a share.
Other companies fared better after reporting earnings. Helen of Troy, which sells personal care products under brands like Dr. Scholl’s and Vidal Sassoon, rose 2.7 percent, up 90 cents to $34.43 after reporting a 15 percent increase in quarterly net income.
Boeing was the biggest gainer of the 30 stocks in the Dow. It jumped 3.5 percent, up $2.63 to $76.76, after two days of sharp declines set off by new problems for its 787 Dreamliner. Boeing said it had “extreme confidence” in the plane even as federal investigators tried to determine the cause of a fire on Monday aboard an empty Japan Airlines plane in Boston and a fuel leak in another Japan Airlines 787 on Tuesday.
The wireless network operator Clearwire rose 7.2 percent, or 21 cents, to $3.13, after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose 88 cents to $36.85, and Sprint fell 9 cents to $5.88.
The online education company Apollo Group fell 7.8 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix, which it operates. The stock fell $1.62, to $19.32 a share.
Interest rates were steady. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note rose 1/32, to 97 29/32, and the yield was unchanged at 1.86 percent.
Shares Rise as Companies Report Earnings
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Shares Rise as Companies Report Earnings
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Shares Rise as Companies Report Earnings
