Wall Street today: Nasdaq climbs over 2%, Dow Jones jumps 1.9%, S&P 500 up 1.8% as focus shifts to earnings

Wall Street stocks surged on Tuesday, as investors turned their focus to corporate earnings amid escalating trade war and fears of removal of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell by President Donald Trump.

At 1:40 PM EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.90%, the S&P 500 rose 1.79%, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.15%.

At 10:56 AM EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.91%, the S&P 500 rose 1.92%, the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.09%.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 345.8 points, or 0.91%, to 38,516.23. The S&P 500 rose 49.5 points, or 0.96%, to 5,207.67​, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 209.0 points, or 1.32%, to 16,079.94.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.39% from 4.42% late on Monday.

On economic data front, the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday slashed its forecast for global economic growth this year to 2.8%, down from 3.3%.

Gainers and Losers

Among megacap stocks, Nvidia rose 1.1% and Apple added 1.7%.

Shares of Tesla, which will report earnings after markets close, rose 2.1%.

Verizon shares fell 2.4% after the company reported a higher quarterly subscriber loss.

Industrial conglomerate 3M Co’s stock soared 3.4% after the company beat estimates for the first quarter profit.

Northrop Grumman stock tanked 8.7% after its profit dropped sharply.

RTX slid 8% after the company flagged a potential hit of about $850 million to annual profit from tariffs.

Invesco stock gained 8.7% after the company reported higher than expected quarterly profit.

Bullion

Gold prices rose to fresh record high on Tuesday, breaching $3,500 per ounce, on higher demand for the safe-haven asset.

Spot gold was up 0.5% at $3,440.51 an ounce by 09:21 AM EDT (1321 GMT). It rose to $3,500.05 earlier in the session.

US gold futures climbed 0.9% to $3,454.60.

Spot silver rose 0.3% at $32.63 an ounce, platinum was steady at $962.36, and palladium jumped 1.4% to $940.

Crude oil

Oil prices rebounded on Tuesday amid concerns over economic headwinds from trade tariffs.

Brent crude futures rose 59 cents, or 0.9%, to $66.85 a barrel by 1423 GMT. The US West Texas Intermediate crude contract for May, which expires on Tuesday, was up 67 cents, or 1%, at $63.75.

The more actively traded WTI June contract gained 70 cents, or 1.1%, to $63.11.