By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose sharply on Tuesday, rebounding from the S&P 500's worst three-day drop since November 2011, as bullish investors pinned hopes on a solid earnings season to ease global growth concerns.
The benchmark S&P has fallen in five of the prior six sessions as investors became concerned about the impact of global economic weakness on U.S. earnings and the potential spread of Ebola.
"In an environment that is oversold to begin with, it doesn't take much to effectuate a shift in market," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York.
"It's hard to know how long that holds, but at some point in time the market shifts its focus from the global macro to the micro and that is where we are today - we are looking at this on a company-by-company basis."
Citigroup, up 2.7 percent to $51.26, was among the top boosts to the benchmark S&P index after the bank posted better-than-expected quarterly results and said it would pull out of consumer banking in 11 markets.
But JPMorgan Chase shares lost 0.7 percent to $57.78, after the biggest U.S. bank reported a lower-than-expected third-quarter profit. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest U.S. bank, lost 1.1 percent to $49.65 after its results.
The S&P financial index gained 1.1 percent. Each of the ten major S&P sectors were in positive territory, led by a 2.5 percent climb by industrials.
Johnson & Johnson shares edged down 0.2 percent to $98.90 even after the diversified healthcare company reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings on the back of strong sales for a new hepatitis C drug.
The S&P index on Monday closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time since Nov. 16, 2012, and is now 5.6 percent below its record closing high on September 18.
S&P 500 companies are expected to show earnings growth of 6.4 percent in the third quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data, with 4 percent revenue growth expected. After the close, Dow component and chipmaker Intel is set to post results.
At 12:10pm the Dow Jones industrial average rose 137.56 points, or 0.84 percent, to 16,458.63, the S&P 500 gained 23.76 points, or 1.27 percent, to 1,898.5 and the Nasdaq Composite added 64.65 points, or 1.53 percent, to 4,278.30.
The largest percentage gainer on the S&P 500 was Southwest Airlines, up 8.1 percent, while the largest percentage decliner was Tyco International, down 3.5 percent.
The largest percentage gainer on the Nasdaq 100 was NXP Semiconductors, up 9.0 percent, while the largest percentage decliner was Autodesk, down 2.2 percent.
Advancing issues were outnumbering declining ones on the NYSE by 2,406 to 634, for a 3.79-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 2,018 issues were rising and 597 falling for a 3.38-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.
The benchmark S&P 500 index was posting 10 new 52-week highs and 23 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite was recording 19 new highs and 131 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)
