US Stocks: Wall Street indexes rise more than 1.5 per cent

The three main Wall Street indexes rose more than 1.5 per cent on Tuesday as upbeat earnings from blue-chips such as Johnson & Johnson and Goldman Sachs eased jitters over the impact of rising interest rates and tariffs on corporate profits.

All the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with nine of them up more than 1 per cent. Technology stocks, which led the market selloff last week, and health stocks jumped more than 2 per cent.

Insurer UnitedHealth rose 3.8 per cent and J&J 2.1 per cent after the two Dow components topped estimates for quarterly profit and boosted their earnings forecast for the year.

Morgan Stanley rose 5.4 per cent and Goldman Sachs 1.8 per cent after they wrapped up earnings from the top six U.S. lenders with better-than-expected quarterly profits.

Walmart gained 1.9 per cent after saying it expects U.S. online sales to jump about 40 per cent this fiscal year and that profitability in the business was in "good shape". The stock had fallen earlier after the retailer cut its profit forecast for the year.

Strong earnings reports along with solid data from the Labor Department, which showed U.S. job openings jumped to a record high in August, is helping the sentiment, said Kim Forrest, senior portfolio manager at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

The data suggests that companies are seeing demand for their products and services and are hiring people to fulfill them, Forrest added.

Healthy earnings from some of the biggest U.S. companies will help soothe nerves of investors who have been fretting over the impact of tariffs, rising interest rates and wages on corporate profits. Those fears, along with a spike in Treasury yields last week, led to a selloff.

Earnings at S&P 500 companies are expected to have risen 21.8 per cent in the third quarter, a slowdown from the past two quarters, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv.

At 12:46 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 402.84 points, or 1.60 per cent, at 25,653.39, the S&P 500 was up 43.84 points, or 1.59 per cent, at 2,794.63 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 155.21 points, or 2.09 per cent, at 7,585.95.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was little changed and well off its high from last week.

"Treading water, if not outright decreasing, is good enough for us right now with respect to interest rates," said Forrest.

Adobe climbed 8.2 per cent, helping ease turbulence in the technology sector after the software company reaffirmed its current-quarter forecast and provided 2019 targets that allayed concerns over the impact of a recent acquisition.

Netflix rose 1.7 per cent ahead of its earnings report, expected after the bell. The video streaming company will be the first to report results among the high-flying FAANG group, the shares of which were at the centre of last week's selloff.

One dampener was W.W. Grainger, which tumbled 13.4 per cent after the industrial product distributor posted disappointing quarterly revenue and warned of higher costs from Chinese tariffs.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 5.13-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3.31-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded three new 52-week highs and seven new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 11 new highs and 55 new lows. 

(With inputs from agencies.)