North American stocks recovered from an early selloff on Tuesday, and were holding onto broad gains in midday trading.
Shortly after noon, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 36 points or 0.3 per cent, to 12,851 – after being down nearly 70 points in early trading. The broader S&P 500 was up 4 points or 0.3 per cent, to 1384. In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index was down 7 points or less than 0.1 per cent, to 12,185.
The gains with the S&P 500 were broad, with nine of the 10 subindexes in positive territory. Among the biggest gains, telecom stocks rose 0.9 per cent, consumer discretionary stocks rose 0.8 per cent, utilities rose 0.5 per cent and energy stocks rose 0.4 per cent.
Home Depot Inc. rose 4.4 per cent, for the biggest gain within the 30-member Dow, after it reported a 1.4 per cent gain in its quarterly earnings, topping analysts' estimates.
However, Microsoft Corp. fell 3.8 per cent after the head of its Windows division, Steven Sinofsky, stepped down very soon after the launch of Windows 8.
Within Canada's benchmark index, consumer staples rose 0.6 per cent and industrials rose 0.5 per cent. Commodity producers were relatively flat.
Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. rose 3.2 per cent after reporting $168-million in quarterly earnings, down from $172-million a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were in line with analysts' estimates.
In Europe, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 0.3 per cent and Germany's DAX index was unchanged.
David Berman