NEW YORK — The Dow Jones industrial average extended its push past 11,000 Tuesday after expectations grew that stronger corporate earnings would signal that a recovery is on track.
Stocks fell in early trading after quarterly results from aluminum producer Alcoa missed expectations. Major indexes later poked higher as traders jockeyed for position ahead of earnings from leading chipmaker Intel, which reported strong results after the closing bell.
By the close, the Dow had tacked on about 13 points. The Dow on Monday finished above 11,000 for the first time in a year and a half.
The results from Alcoa brought a disappointing start to the flow of earnings reports from the January-March quarter. But analysts said the company’s performance didn’t provide a good indication of how other companies would do.
Alcoa was the first of the 30 Dow stocks to report results.
The mood could brighten today after Intel’s report. The company said its first-quarter profit nearly quadrupled from a year earlier, when it booked a big loss on an investment. The company’s earnings and revenue came in ahead of analysts’ expectations and brought more evidence that businesses are again spending on technology after a drop during the financial crisis.
Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist at Northern Trust in Chicago, said earnings reports are likely to top expectations because few companies have warned that their results will miss forecasts.
“If we continue with this pace, at the end of the second quarter we will be at a new all-time high for earnings for the U.S. economy,” he said. “That’s a pretty stunning achievement.”
The stock market has been rising for 13 months on signs that the economy is improving. But some are concerned the rise has come too quickly.
The Dow rose 13.45, or 0.1 percent, to 11,019.42, its highest close since September 2008. The Dow has risen for four straight days and is up on 10 of the past 13 days.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 0.82, or 0.1 percent, to 1,197.30, while the Nasdaq composite rose 8.12, or 0.3 percent, to 2,465.99.
Since major stock indexes hit 12-year lows last year, there have been five pullbacks of as much as 8 percent in the S&P 500. None has topped the 10 percent mark that would signify a correction.
There have been few drops in the past two months. Instead, stocks have been notching a string of steady gains.
“The market has ground higher steadily,” said Adrian Cronje, chief investment officer at the investment firm Balentine in Atlanta. “It’s up a little bit every day, a little bit every day. And that tends to lull people into complacency.”
