NEW YORK — Better-than-expected earnings reports from two corporate bellwethers helped push stocks to their fourth day of gains Wednesday, even though the companies themselves didn’t get to enjoy the rally.
Intel and JPMorgan Chase each fell by more than 1 percent despite announcing double-digit gains in profits. Their earnings reports, however, contained nuggets of hopeful news on the direction of the broader economy.
JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon predicted credit- card defaults are likely to fall next quarter, which helped push shares of American Express up 1.9 percent and MasterCard up 3.9 percent.
Intel predicted sales should remain consistent through the end of the year as customers switch from back-to-school shopping to the holiday season, which contributed to gains in Dell, which was up 1.5 percent for the day, and Microsoft, which was up 2 percent.
CSX, one of the country’s largest railroad companies, saw a big jump in the shipment of cars and trucks.
“They were assuring,” said Andrew Ross, partner at First New York Securities. “But they weren’t inspiring or disrupting.”
The Dow rose 75.68, or 0.7 percent, to 11,096.08. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 8.33, also 0.7 percent, to 1,178.10, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 23.31, or 1 percent, to 2,441.23.
One reason that the shares in the companies that announced earnings didn’t jump was that some traders were expecting even higher gains.
“With Intel especially, there were whisper expectations that were much higher than what the analysts had printed, and that helped push the stock up beyond estimates,” said Jay Leupp, president of Grubb & Ellis AGA mutual funds.
Those results allowed the market to continue its upward trajectory of recent weeks, Ross said. The Dow is up 3.9 percent in October and has jumped more than 11 percent since the beginning of September.
Commodities also jumped sharply. Gold touched another record, and oil rose about 2 percent. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining were among the biggest winners. Greenwood Village- based Newmont gained $1.18 to close at $63.18.
