After moving to the upside early in the session, stocks remain mostly positive in mid-day trading on Tuesday. With the upward move on the day, the Dow has reached another new record intraday high.
Currently, the major averages are hovering in positive territory. The Dow is up 87.94 points or 0.4 percent at 21,979.06, the Nasdaq is up 11.95 points or 0.2 percent at 6,360.07 and the S&P 500 is up 5.58 points or 0.2 percent at 2,475.88.
The strength on Wall Street comes as traders continue to react to the latest batch of earnings news, with most corporate results exceeding economist estimates.
On the U.S. economic front, a report released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday showed U.S. personal income unexpectedly came in unchanged in the month of June.
The report said personal income edged down by less than a tenth of a percent in June after rising by a revised 0.3 percent in May.
Economists had expected income to climb by 0.4 percent compared to the 0.4 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.
Meanwhile, the report said real spending, which is adjusted to remove price changes, was nearly unchanged in June after climbing by 0.2 percent in the previous month.
A separate report from the Institute for Supply Management showed a slowdown in the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector in the month of July.
The ISM said its purchasing managers index dropped to 56.3 in July from 57.8 in June, with a reading above 50 indicating growth in the manufacturing sector. Economists had expected the index to fall to 56.5.
Electronic storage stocks have shown a strong move to the upside, driving the NYSE Arca Disk Drive Index up by 1.5 percent.
Significant strength is also visible among telecommunications stocks, as reflected by 1.5 percent jump by the NYSE Arca North American Telecom Index.
Banking stocks are also seeing some strength on the day, while oil service and trucking stocks have shown notable moves to the downside.
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher during trading on Tuesday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.3 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced by 0.8 percent.
The major European markets also moved to the upside on the day. While the German DAX Index jumped by 1.1 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 and the French CAC 40 Index both climbed by 0.7 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries have turned higher after an initial move to the downside. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by 2.6 basis points at 2.266 percent.
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