US: Stocks end higher after more strong quarterly earnings

STOCKS on Wall Street finished higher on Tuesday (Feb 6), propelled by strong quarterly earnings and reversing some of Monday’s declines.

“Today’s a little bit of a misdirection kind of day,” said Patrick O’Hare from Briefing.com.

“What we have going on today really is a little bit of a drag from some profit taking in the mega cap stocks,” he said. “And that’s weighing on the market cap weighted index, whereas the broader market is faring well today.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.4 per cent at 38,521.36, while the broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.2 per cent to 4,954.23.

The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also inched higher, rising by 0.1 per cent to 15,609.00.

Among individual stocks, data analytics firm Palantir’s share price surged more than 30 per cent after announcing that its artificial intelligence offerings had helped it to surpass revenue expectations for the fourth quarter.

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And the music streaming firm Spotify closed up 3.9 per cent after it beat earnings expectations and its stock was upgraded by analysts. AFP