Nasdaq closes at record high amid earnings, data

The Nasdaq closed at record high on Tuesday, as Wall Street mainly digested Home Depot's better-than-expected quarterly results and newly-released economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched down 2.19 points, or 0.01 per cent, to 20,979.75. The S&P 500 lost 1.65 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 2,400.67. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 20.20 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 6,169.87.

Before Tuesday's opening bell, Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer, reported sales of $23.9 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, a 4.9 per cent increase from the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

Net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 were $2.0 billion, or 1.67 dollars per diluted share, compared with net earnings of 1.8 billion dollars, or 1.44 dollars per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2016.

This earnings season has been strong so far. The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 14.7 per cent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 7.2 per cent.

On the economic front, U.S. industrial production advanced one percent in April, the largest monthly gain since February 2014 and topping market estimates, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

US privately-owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,172,000, well below market expectation, according to U.S. Census Bureau Tuesday. This is 2.6 per cent below the revised March estimate of 1,203,000, but is 0.7 per cent above the April 2016 rate of 1,164,000.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed at record highs on Monday as Wall Street cheered over soaring oil prices.

--IANS

ahm/