Wall Street higher at midday; S&P touches new record

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks are higher at the midpoint of the session with the S&P hitting a new record intraday high, as investors brushed aside global worries and shifted attention to encouraging economic data and earnings reports.

Home resales rose to their fastest pace in eight months in a sign the housing market may be emerging from a slump. The PHLX housing sector index is up 1.2 percent.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is the best performer on the S&P 500 after posting better-than-expected earnings late Monday.

"It seems the market for today is taking a breather from worrying about the geopolitical concerns," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "So the market is focusing on several good earnings reports and of course economic data."

The Dow Jones industrial average is rising 68.9 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,120.63, the S&P 500 is up 11.92 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,985.55 and the Nasdaq Composite is adding 38.08 points, or 0.86 percent, to 4,462.78.

The largest percentage gainer on the New York Stock Exchange is Herbalife Ltd, which is up 15.44 percent, while the largest percentage decliner is New Orient Education, down 11.49 percent.

At the NYSE, the most active stocks are Bank Of America, down 0.06 percent to $15.51; Petroleo Brasil, up 0.29 percent to $17.47 and Advanced Micro Devices, up 1.32 percent to $3.83.

On the Nasdaq, the top 3 most active stocks are Plug Power INC, up 8.5 percent to $6.17; Facebook Inc, up 0.1 percent to $69.45 and Apple Inc, up 0.4 percent to $94.29.

Advancing issues are outnumbering declining ones on the NYSE by 2,192 to 755, for a 2.90-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,985 issues are rising and 628 falling for a 3.16-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The broad S&P 500 index is posting 54 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite is recording 58 new highs and 16 new lows.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak)