Enthusiasm for earnings lifts Wall Street

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes rose on Wednesday as investors' expectations for higher earnings lifted stocks across sectors.

The S&P 500 has rallied strongly in the new year, gaining 4.8 percent so far and posting only two sessions of losses. The Dow, after briefly hitting the 26,000 milestone on Tuesday, its fastest 1000-point rise, is on track to close above that mark for the first time.

More than three-quarters of the 36 S&P 500 companies that have reported so far have topped earnings estimates, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

"The positive earnings revision is the strongest we've seen in several years," said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta. "It's been hockey-stick growth up since the tax bill passed."

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 270.7 points, or 1.05 percent, to 26,063.56, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 25.71 points, or 0.93 percent, to 2,802.13 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 69.75 points, or 0.97 percent, to 7,293.43.

Boeing jumped 3.5 percent after the company announced a joint venture with car seating leader Adient to make aircraft seats.

IBM rose 3.0 percent after Barclays analysts double upgraded the stock to "overweight" and hiked its price target by $59 to $192.

Several companies, however, saw their shares trade lower after underwhelming earnings reports and forecasts.

Goldman Sachs was down 2.2 percent after posting its first quarterly loss in six years on tax-related charges and a sharp drop in trading revenue.

Ford slipped 7.3 percent after the automaker reported full-year profit below estimates and provided a downbeat forecast.

General Electric slipped 4.5 percent, extending losses from Tuesday, when it announced more than $11 billion in charges.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.99-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.81-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 67 new 52-week highs and 6 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 78 new highs and 30 new lows.

(Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Nick Zieminski)