US markets end higher on Tuesday

24 Apr 2019 Evaluate

The US markets ended higher on Tuesday as investors cheered the latest batch of solid corporate earnings, including those from blue-chip Coca-Cola and social-media brands such as Twitter Inc. United Technologies and Coca-Cola both moved notably higher on the day after reporting better than expected first quarter results. Shares of Twitter (TWTR) also saw significant strength after the social media giant reported better than expected first quarter earnings, revenue, and user growth. Toy maker Hasbro (HAS) also moved sharply higher after unexpectedly turning a profit in the first quarter on better than expected revenues. Besides, positive sentiment was also generated by a Commerce Department report showing new home sales in the US unexpectedly jumped to their highest level in well over a year in the month of March. The Commerce Department said new home sales surged up by 4.5% to an annual rate of 692,000 in March after soaring by 5.9% to a revised rate of 662,000 in February.

The continued increase surprised participants, who had expected new home sales to drop by 2.5% to a rate of 650,000 from the 667,000 originally reported for the previous month. With the unexpected spike, new home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 712,000 in November of 2017. The report also showed new home sales in March were up by 3.0% compared to the same month a year ago, reflecting a notable turnaround from the revised 0.2% annual drop in February. The unexpected monthly increase in new home sales was partly due to strength in the Midwest, where new home sales skyrocketed by 17.6% to a rate of 87,000. New home sales in the West and South also jumped by 6.7% and 3.6%, respectively, while new home sales in the Northeast plunged by 22.2%.

Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 145.34 points or 0.55 percent to 26656.39, Nasdaq gained 105.56 points or 1.32 percent to 8120.82 and S&P 500 was up by 25.71 points or 0.88 percent to 2933.68.

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