NEW YORK, Jan 25 (AFP) - US stocks snapped a four-session losing streak Tuesday as a series of upbeat profit reports eased concerns about a slowdown in earnings growth and brought buyers off the sidelines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 92.66 points, or 0.89 percent, to 10,461.26 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lifted 11.39 points, or 0.57 percent, to 2,020.09 at the closing bell.
The main indexes gave back some of their early gains but still closed out of the best sessions of an otherwise dreary 2005.
"It finally seemed that the market paid attention to some pretty good earnings," said John Caldwell, chief investment strategist at McDonald Financial Group.
"There's been enough good news out there, it's just the market's been ignoring it the last three weeks."
Earnings from three Dow components were reassuring for Wall Street, which had been fretting over a slowdown in profits. Johnson and Johnson along with Dupont topped the average analyst forecast for earnings, while Merck met the Wall Street estimate.
Also helping sentiment, the Conference Board said its consumer confidence index rising to a better-than-expected 103.4 from 102.7 in December.
Those factors helped bring the market out of a four-day losing streak that had pushed the main indexes to their lowest levels in more than two months.
"Just when you least expect it the market turns," said Hugh Johnson chief investment officer at First Albany.
"The most important thing is that the market had gone down so many days and the market looked arguably cheap in the eyes of many investors."
01/25/2005 21:05 GMT - AFP