Stocks rise following US Steel, Amex earnings

Stocks staged their second straight moderate advance Tuesday as some of Wall Street’s earnings anxiety eased -- at least for now.

A rally in financial stocks also lent support to the market.

Share prices briefly stumbled after the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index, already at its lowest level in the index’s four-decade history, slipped further in January, suggesting consumers are likely to remain reluctant to spend in the coming months.

The index came in at 37.7 in January, down from a revised 38.6 in December.

But profit reports from U.S. Steel, American Express, chip maker Texas Instruments and movie rental company Netflix offered some assurance that the fourth quarter, though generally terrible for corporate earnings, wasn’t the disaster many had feared.

“Remember, things have been so ugly for so long now that it doesn’t take a lot to have a positive surprise,” said Jim King, chief investment officer at National Penn Investors Trust Co. in Reading, Pa.

There were still some disappointing earnings, with shares of Delta Air Lines and Verizon Communications falling after their results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 58.70 points, or 0.7%, to 8,174.73. On Monday, the index added 38 points on an increase in December of sales of existing homes.

Broader stock indicators also advanced Tuesday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index advanced 9.14 points, or 1.1%, to 845.71, and the Nasdaq composite index jumped 15.44 points, or 1%, to 1,504.90.

The Russell 2,000 index of smaller companies rose 1.2%.

Advancing issues outnumbered losers by 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite the rally in stocks, commodity prices fell on signs of economic weakness, including a sharp drop in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index of home prices.

Oil futures dropped $4.15, or 9.1%, to $41.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. An index of 19 major commodities sank 3.7%.

The near-term gold futures contract fell below $900 an ounce after just a day above that threshold.

Among the stocks of companies posting quarterly results, U.S. Steel rose 6.9%, American Express surged 9.7%, Texas Instruments climbed 3.7% and Netflix shot up 15%.

On the down side, Delta tumbled 20% and Verizon lost 3.3%.

In the financial sector, Bank of America climbed 8.3% and Goldman Sachs Group gained 5.5%. An index of 24 bank stocks rose 3.4%. Shares of many banks also rose after hours on a report that next week the Obama administration might announce a plan to remove bad assets from bank balance sheets.

Overseas, key stock indexes fell 0.3% in Britain and 0.1% in Germany. Shares surged 4.9% in Japan and edged lower in France.