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U.S. stocks are up firmly in positive territory Tuesday afternoon, extending early gains as several counters across various sectors continue to attract strong buying amid expectations of strong earnings from technology majors.

Several technology heavyweights such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms are scheduled to announce their quarterly earnings this week.

Other big names including Tesla, Boeing, Intel, American Airlines, Chevron and Exxon Mobil are also slated to report their quarterly earnings during the course of this week.

The major averages are all up with impressive gains. The Dow is up 303.77 or about 0.8 percent at 38,543.72. The S&P 500 is up 62.80 points or 1.25 percent at 5,073.60, while the Nasdaq is gaining 253.64 points or 1.64 percent at 15,704.94.

Goldman Sachs is up 3.3 percent. JPMorgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, Amazon, McDonald’s, Salesforce.com, Chevron and Amgen are gaining 1 to 2 percent.

Danaher, up 6.6 percent, is the top gainer in the S&P 500. General Motors, Super Micro Computer, GE Aerospace, United Rentals and Verizon are up 3 to 5 percent.

Illumina, Netflix, Microchip Technology and Micron Technology are up sharply.

Invesco is down 4.8 percent. Walmart is down more than 2 percent. Pepsico and Cadence Design Systems are also notably lower.

In economic news, a report released by the Commerce Department showed a substantial increase in new home sales in the U.S. in the month of March.

The Commerce Department said new home sales spiked by 8.8 percent to an annual rate of 693,000 in March after plunging by 5.1 percent to a revised rate of 637,000 in February.

Economists had expected new home sales to rise to an annual rate of 668,000 from the 662,000 originally reported for the previous month.

Building permits fell by 3.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.467 million in March 2024, revised from a preliminary estimate of 1.458 million. This follows a 2.3 percent increase in February.

The S&P Global US Composite PMI declined to 50.9 in April 2024 from 52.1 in the previous month, signaling only a slight expansion in the country’s private sector, which was the softest since December, a preliminary estimate showed.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region turned in a mixed performance during trading on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.3 percent, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index slid by 0.7 percent.

The major European markets closed higher on the day. While the German DAX Index surged 1.55 percent, France’s CAC 40 gained 0.81 percent, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 ended higher by 0.26 percent.

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