The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes advanced to all-time highs following earnings beats from a quartet of Dow members and a diverse set of others, including social network operator Twitter (TWTR), jet manufacturer Lockheed Martin (LMT) and toymaker Hasbro (HAS).
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., new home sales rose 4.5% to a 692,000 rate in March, beating estimates. The FHFA home price index rose 0.3% to 272.8 in February. The Richmond Fed manufacturing index fell 7 points to a reading of 3 in April.
TOP NEWS: Four Dow members reported earnings before the open, with all four topping expectations in terms of earnings per share. Following their reports, Coca-Cola (KO) rose 1.75%, United Technologies (UTX) gained 2.3%, Verizon (VZ) fell 2.1% and Procter & Gamble (PG) declined 2.7%.
Twitter shares jumped 15.7% after the company reported better than expected revenue and user metrics for the first quarter. Twitter's CFO said that following the "strong results" the company has "never been more confident" in its strategy and execution" as CEO Jack Dorsey called out the company's "more proactive approach to reducing abuse" on its platform.
Following a quiet period after the company’s initial public offering, several Wall Street analysts started coverage of Lyft (LYFT) with buy-equivalent ratings, citing its large and global marketplace, few competitors and compelling valuation following recent underperformance.
Ford (F) and Autonomic announced that they have signed a multi-year, global agreement with Amazon Web Services (AMZN), which they said will expand the availability of cloud connectivity services and connected car application development services for the transportation industry.
Additionally, shares of companies in the video game space -- including Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Electronic Arts (EA), Take-Two (TTWO), Microsoft (MSFT), Dell Technologies (DELL), and GameStop (GME) -- were active after Nvidia (NVDA) introduced the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and 1650 Turing-based GPUs for gaming laptops. The company said that its new GPUs deliver a "major jump in overall performance and power efficiency for today's most popular games."
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Kohl's (KSS), which rose 11.9% after it announced that it would expand its partnership with Amazon and will now accept Amazon returns at all of its stores nationwide beginning in July. Also higher was Hasbro, which gained 14.2% after the toymaker's report of better than expected quarterly results.
Among the notable losers was Crocs (CROX), which slipped 2.5% after Piper Jaffray analyst Erinn Murphy downgraded the stock to Neutral from Overweight. Also lower were Waters (WAT) and State Street (STT), which fell 12.3% and 4.4%, respectively, after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: The Dow rose 145.34, or 0.55%, to 26,656.39, the Nasdaq gained 105.56, or 1.32%, to 8,120.82, and the S&P 500 advanced 25.71, or 0.88%, to 2,933.68.
Coca-Cola
+0.82 (+1.73%)
UTX
+
Verizon
-1.24 (-2.12%)
Procter & Gamble
-2.85 (-2.69%)
+5.37 (+15.62%)
Lyft
-0.61 (-1.00%)
Ford
+0.16 (+1.71%)
Amazon.com
+35.98 (+1.91%)
Nvidia
+2.16 (+1.15%)
acquired by MSFT
+1.18 (+2.60%)
Electronic Arts
+2.13 (+2.30%)
Take-Two
+1.43 (+1.56%)
Microsoft
+1.74 (+1.41%)
Dell Technologies
+1.76 (+2.78%)
GameStop
+0.24 (+2.77%)
Kohl's
+8.08 (+11.98%)
Hasbro
+12.32 (+14.00%)
Crocs
-0.68 (-2.50%)
Waters
-29.45 (-12.22%)
State Street
-3.06 (-4.38%)