U.S. stocks closed mostly higher on Tuesday, led by gains in energy, mining and financial companies.
The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index eked out small gains. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed modestly lower, reflecting a slump in technology stocks, which were dragged down by Netflix and IBM.
The gains in energy and mining companies came as prices for oil, copper and other basic materials rose.
Investors were mostly focused on the latest batch of corporate earnings and on what company managers have to say about their prospects for growing profits this year.
“The market is focused on where we are going to be three months from now, five months from now,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial.
The Dow rose 49.44 points, or 0.27 percent, to 18,053.60. The S&P 500 index gained 6.46 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,100.80. The Nasdaq fell 19.69 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,940.33.
Expectations for earnings are low this quarter, with corporate profits for companies in the S&P 500 projected to be down 8.1 percent, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Even excluding the beaten-down energy sector, earnings growth for S&P 500 firms is expected to be down 3.4 percent.
All of the earnings growth this year is expected to come in the second half of 2016, noted Erin Gibbs, equity chief investment officer at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Several firms delivered quarterly results that put investors in a buying mood Tuesday.
Johnson & Johnson gained 1.6 percent after its first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations. Higher sales of new prescription drugs and other key medicines nearly offset a big hit from the strong dollar. The stock added $1.75 to $112.68.
Goldman Sachs’ latest results gave the investment bank’s shares a lift. Goldman’s earnings beat Wall Street’s estimates, even though its profit sank by 56 percent from a year earlier. The stock rose $3.63, or 2.3 percent, to $162.65.
Netflix slumped 13 percent, a day after the streaming video company gave a disappointing forecast for subscriber additions and reported first-quarter revenue that fell short of financial analysts’ forecasts. The stock lost $14.06 to $94.34.
