U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday as a rebound in the Turkish lira from an all-time low lifted investor sentiment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112.22 points to close at 25,299.92, while the S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 2,839.96. Both indexes also snapped four-day losing streaks. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.7 percent, closing at 7,870.89.
Tech shares contributed to the gains as Apple and Amazon rose 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, bank stocks rose as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley all closed more than 1 percent higher.
The lira rose about 8 percent to 6.36 after falling to a record-low 7.24 per dollar on Monday. The currency has been under pressure recently as market watchers became jittery over rising tensions between Turkey and the U.S. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he supported doubling metal tariffs on Turkey.
Jeremy Klein of FBN Securities thinks the recent decline in U.S. stocks related to Turkey’s turmoil will be short lived. “Turkey is not a member of the European Union or the euro zone, so it has less hooks into the European banks, which means less trouble for us,” said Klein, the firm’s chief market strategist. “I think it will be well contained.”
Tensions between the two countries intensified after a Turkish delegation left Washington last week with no apparent progress on the detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who is charged with supporting a group blamed for an attempted coup in 2016.
Turkey is also dealing with an economic tailspin as inflation has surged there recently. Last month, Turkey’s inflation rate hit 16 percent, well above the central bank’s 5 percent target. The financial troubles have sparked fear of contagion across Europe.
“This is going to continue for some time,” said Lale Akoner, market strategist at BNY Mellon Investment Management, noting Turkey has to contend with tightening monetary policy around the world as well as key fundamental issues. They have “a huge current account deficit relative to their GDP and surging inflation.”
“The reason the lira is bouncing is because the finance minister said he would talk to foreign investors,” Akoner said. “The fact that he’s willing to talk is good,” but the problems remain.
Emerging-market shares followed the lira higher. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets exchange-traded fund rose about 0.4 percent, ending a four-day slide. Turkish stocks led the gains in emerging markets, as the iShares MSCI Turkey ETF surged 11.3 percent, notching its biggest one-day gain since 2008.
Home Depot reported second-quarter earnings and revenue easily topped Wall Street estimates. The company also raised its full-year earnings outlook. The stock briefly traded higher before falling 0.5 percent.
The Dow component is the latest company to report better-than-expected quarterly earnings in what has been a very strong reporting season. Through Tuesday morning, 76.84 percent of S&P 500 companies that have topped analysts’ earnings estimates, according to FactSet. Corporate earnings have grown more than 24 percent for the second quarter on a year-over-year basis.
“Considering the [second-quarter] 2018 sales and earnings beat and growth rates, … there are not many negatives you can legitimately say about overall earnings at this point,” said Nick Raich, CEO of The Earnings Scout.
Source: CNBC
