U.S. stocks rise, strong earnings send retailers higher

Stocks on Wall Street closed broadly higher Tuesday, as solid company earnings helped lift several retailers ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.

The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, more than making up for its losses last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite gained 1.4%.

All the company sectors in the benchmark S&P 500 index rose, with technology stocks driving much of the rally. Chipmaker Nvidia rose 4.7%.

Financial and health care stocks also helped lift the market. Charles Schwab rose 1.6% and Pfizer added 1.9%.

Energy stocks notched the biggest gain as the price of U.S. crude oil rose 1.5%. Chevron rose 2.6%.

“Yesterday’s slow sell-off of energy was overdone,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “So you’re getting a bounce back in energy and that’s really leading the market.”

Long-term Treasury yields fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slipped to 3.77% from 3.84% late Monday.

“When rates go down it’s great for all stocks,” Hatfield said.

The S&P 500 rose 53.64 points to 4,003.58. The Dow gained 397.82 points to 34,098.10. The techheavy Nasdaq climbed 149.90 points to 11,174.41.

Smaller company stocks also got a boost. The Russell 2000 rose 21.20 points, or 1.2%, to 1,860.44.

Investors have very little news to review this week, but several retailers and technology companies are closing out the latest round of corporate earnings with their financial results.

Best Buy surged 12.8% after the electronics retailer did better than analysts expected and said a decline in sales for the year will not be as bad as it had projected earlier.