Stocks regain ground on upbeat reports

U.S. stock indexes regained about 60 percent of Monday's losses and gold put the brakes on a historic two-day plunge on upbeat economic reports. The Dow Jones industrial average, which lost 265 points Monday, added 157.58 points Tuesday, rising 1.08 percent to 14,756.78. The Standard and Poor's 500 off 36 points Monday, added 22.21 points or 1.43 percent to 1,574.57. The tech-oriented Nasdaq composite added 48.14 points or 1.5 percent Tuesday after a 78 point drop Monday. The Nasdaq closed Tuesday at 3,264.63. On the New York Stock Exchange, 2,512 stocks advanced and 566 declined on a volume of 3.6 billion shares traded. Markets turned around as Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs Group and Coca-Cola all released quarterly statements that beat expectations. The Commerce Department said the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts came to 1,036,000 in March, the first time the figure has topped 1 million since June 2008. Gold, which entered a bear market Friday, rebounded slightly. Down $232 on Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange in two days of trading, gold added $4.20 Tuesday to reach $1,365.30 per troy ounce. NYMEX West Texas Intermediate crude oil, near a three-month low, also found traction, adding 17 cents to reach $88.88 per barrel. The 10-year U.S. treasury note fell 12/32 to yield 1.729 percent. Against the dollar, the euro was higher at $1.3174 from Monday's $1.3036. Against the yen, the dollar rose to 97.56 yen from 96.77 yen. The dollar index, a prorated measure of the dollar against six major currencies, fell 0.62 percent to 81.80 on the International Exchange. Markets were down in Europe after the International Monetary Fund predicted the eurozone's gross domestic product would rise a sluggish 0.25 percent in 2013. The FTSE 100 index in Britain dropped 0.62 percent, losing 39.02 points to 6,304.58. The CAC 40 index in France lost 0.67 percent or 24.69 points to 3,685.79. Stocks in Asia were mixed. The Nikkei 225 in Japan dropped 0.41 percent or 54.22 points to 13,221.44. In China, the Shanghai composite index added 0.59 percent or 12.90 points to 2,194.85. On the Chicago Board of Trade, corn for May delivery added 16.5 cents to $6.63 per bushel. May soybeans gained 17.25 cents to $14.125 and wheat added 10.25 cents to $7.04.