US stocks rising as investors await Fed meeting

New York (AP) — U.S. stocks rose Tuesday morning as investors weighed earnings reports from several companies and awaited news from a two-day U.S. Federal Reserve meeting that ends Wednesday.

Keeping score: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 38 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,856 as of 10:55 a.m. The Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed nine points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,970. The Nasdaq composite rose 42 points, or 1 percent, to 4,528.

Biotech bounce: Amgen, the world's biggest biotech drugmaker, rose 5 percent after it announced plans to cut more jobs, buy back $2 billion worth of stock and raise its dividend by 30 percent. That followed news Monday that Amgen's third-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue topped Wall Street's expectations.

Twitter Tumble: The social-media company plunged 10 percent after giving a disappointing outlook for the current quarter. Twitter reported third-quarter revenue late Monday that outpaced expectations, but investors are worried about revenue for the last three months of the year and growth in the number of users. They pushed the stock down $5.01 to $43.55.

Confidence Boost: An index of U.S. consumer confidence tracked by the Conference Board rebounded strongly in October, hitting a seven-year high as solid job gains raised expectations for economic growth.

Meanwhile, a government report showed orders to U.S. companies for long-lasting manufactured goods fell for a second month in September. Orders have jumped around in recent months due to moves in the volatile category of aircraft orders. A key category that signals business investment plans dropped by biggest amount in eight months.

Home watch: U.S. home prices grew more slowly in August amid modest sales. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.6 percent in August from 12 months earlier. Home prices were rising at a double-digit pace as recently as last fall.

All eyes on Fed: Investors are looking ahead to Wednesday's monthly policy announcement by the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee for a possible timeline for interest rate hikes. The Fed is winding down its $4 trillion bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing. That is heightening concern about whether the U.S. economy is strong enough to sustain growth without that support.

The Quote: "Wednesday night's FOMC meeting looms large in the market's psyche," said strategist Evan Lucas of IG Markets in Melbourne, Australia. "With the end of the asset-purchase program a foregone conclusion, speculation is once again mounting about the movement of interest rates."

Energy: Benchmark U.S. crude fell eight cents to $80.92 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

European Markets: In morning trading, Germany's DAX jumped 1.8 percent. France's CAC-40 and Britain's FTSE 100 both added 0.5 percent.

European stock indexes had tumbled Monday after regulators warned some banks needed to raise more capital to protect themselves against losses in any future crisis.

Asia's Day: China's Shanghai Composite Index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng were both up more than 2 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 fell 0.4 percent despite strong retail sales data. Seoul and Sydney also fell slightly.

Bonds and Dollar: The price of the 10-year Treasury note fell. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction to the price, rose to 2.28 percent from 2.26 percent late Monday. The dollar rose to 108.01 yen from Monday's 107.88 yen. The euro rose to $1.2740 from Monday's $1.2698.

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by Bernard Condon, AP Business Writer

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The Gayly – October 28, 2014 @ 11:15am