NEW YORK — Stocks ended mostly higher Monday ahead of a flurry of earnings reports that could determine whether the economy is really getting better, as investors have been hoping over the past month as they drove the market higher.
Early signs were good. Goldman Sachs Group surprised investors after the end of trading Monday when it released better-than-expected quarterly results and announced a $5 billion stock offering. The company had been scheduled to report results today.
The bank’s $1.7 billion profit was just the sort of good surprise traders were eager for Monday as they snapped up financial stocks. Some are looking for signs of recovery, while others don’t want to get burned if banks beat the low expectations the market has set for the industry.
The buying helped the Dow Jones industrial average turn a 120-point deficit into a modest loss of 26 points by the time the closing bell sounded. Broader indexes managed to post gains.
Trading volume was light, which can skew the market’s moves.
The occasional bouts of selling after a long holiday weekend were orderly and suggested that traders were reluctant to give up on a five- week rally. The earnings reports and economic figures due this week could reignite buying if they beat Wall Street’s modest expectations.
“If you get a couple earnings reports that are better than the worst that people expected, then that might help,” said Den is Amato, chief investment officer at Ancora Advisors.
Beyond banks, industrial stocks ended mixed after Boeing and Chevron said the weak economy was hurting their results.
The Dow fell 25.57, or 0.3 percent, to 8,057.81. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.17, or 0.3 percent, to 858.73, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 0.77, or 0.1 percent, to 1,653.31.
Boeing fell 5 percent and weighed on the Dow as analysts cut their ratings and estimates for the aircraft maker after it said it would reduce production of some jetliners next year. Chevron lost 1.8 percent after saying first-quarter earnings will be sharply lower because of lower oil and natural-gas prices.
Les Satlow, portfolio manager at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass., said the banks may have escaped an outright takeover by the government but that investors must still confront the serious troubles that remain.
“The specter of nationalization has been chased away,” he said. “We’re back to the reality that we have a severe recession with sharply deteriorating credit quality.”
Investors have been buying stocks in part because of the idea that improvements at banks could help lift the economy by boosting lending and helping the stock market stabilize.
