Investors look past housing data

NEW YORK — Wall Street was mixed Tuesday, recovering from an early loss as investors shrugged off disappointing housing and consumer-confidence data to focus on stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings.

The Dow Jones industrials set a new trading high, rising 34.54 to 12,953.94, less than 11 points away from its trek toward 13,000.

Microsoft, one of the 30 Dow stocks, added 1 cent to close at $28.79 a share. Boeing, also a Dow stock, gained 3 cents to $93.67.

Broader markets were mixed. The S&P 500 index was down 0.52 at 1,480.41, and the Nasdaq rose 0.87 to 2,524.54.

The Nasdaq is slightly above the halfway point to its record close of 5,048.62, while the S&P is just 3 percent below its record close of 1,527.46. Both records were reached in March 2000, at the end of the dot-com boom.

Robust first-quarter earnings reports have been driving the market higher over the past week, allowing the Dow to approach 13,000, and there were more upbeat results cheering the market on Tuesday.

"A general optimistic tone related to better-than-expected earnings is what's moving it," said Richard Cripps, chief market strategist for Stifel Nicolaus, a St. Louis-based broker. However, "it's not a market that's necessarily very broad in its advance."

He pointed out that the Dow's strong gains in afternoon trading were driven by only a few companies, notably International Business Machines Corp. and Honeywell International Inc., which both made dividend announcements. Also, there were much smaller moves in the broader Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes — which so far this year have risen by greater percentages than the Dow.

"Where I think you'll get a lot more excitement is when the S&P pushes past the 2,000 level. That's going to be a real event," Cripps said.

"Everyone is remembering where we were a year ago, when we were all talking about Dow 12,000, and then the market ended up tanking in May," said Matt Kelmon, portfolio manager of the Kelmoore Strategy Funds. "I think there's just nervousness out there that this could again be the case, and there really isn't a lot to propel the market with. You'll see a new focus on data."

Oil prices declined, with a barrel of light sweet crude down $1.31 to $64.58 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. There has been continued concerns about violence in Nigeria, a key oil producer, and the size of inventories of oil and gasoline in the U.S.