NEW YORK — Strong earnings from Johnson & Johnson helped stocks rebound Tuesday, a day after suffering their worst one-day drop in more than a month.
Johnson & Johnson rose 3.7 percent, leading the 30 companies in the Dow Jones industrial average, with earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations. The health care heavyweight also raised its full-year profit forecast.
That outlook and anticipation of results from tech bellwethers due after the close of regular trading helped Wall Street recover some lost ground.
“This is an earnings-driven market at this point, and some of the commentary out of the companies isn’t as bad as we expected, and forecasts going forward are reasonable,” said Kim Caughey Forrest, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital. “IBM and Intel for the tech sector will give us some clarity (Tuesday night).”
IBM is a “superbellwether,” in that its businesses include hardware, software and related services, she added.
Stocks traded in a narrow range throughout the day. Goldman Sachs and other companies reported weak earnings, and worries lingered over a warning from Standard & Poor’s about U.S. government debt.
Zions Bancorporation rose 3.9 percent, the most of any company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. The Utah bank reported a first-quarter profit after posting a loss a year ago. It also said customers were getting better at paying back loans, allowing the bank to set aside less money to cover defaults.
The Commerce Department reported that builders broke ground in March on more new homes than analysts expected. Home construction rose 7.2 percent from February.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 65.16 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 12,266.75. The S&P 500 rose 7.48, or 0.6 percent, to 1,312.62. The Nasdaq composite rose 9.59, or 0.4 percent, to 2,744.97.
