U.S. Stocks Shrugged Off Bogus Tweet For Solid Gains

U.S. stocks closed higher, Tuesday, after a precipitous fall caused by a tweet by the Associated Press claiming that explosions had hit the White House and that President Obama had been injured proved to be false, the result of a hacker. The Dow plunged over 100 points after the tweet was sent, but it proved to be little more than a blip. Discounting that movement, stocks were positive for the entire session, supported by corporate earnings.

Stocks were able to shrug off disappointing economic data from around the globe. Pre-bell, they ignored weak purchasing manager's index readings from China and Germany.

U.S. Housing Data
Stateside, the economic data released Tuesday showed March new single-family home sales weighed in at 417,000 vs. 421,000 forecast by economists polled by MarketWatch. A 9:00 a.m. ET release showed that FHFA house prices climbed by 0.7% in February. Meanwhile, the April U.S. flash manufacturing PMI fell to 52, its lowest reading in six months.

The Richmond Fed's manufacturing survey came in at a surprise negative-six reading vs. economist estimates of plus two. Important to keep in mind, the Richmond Fed district has a large concentration of defense contractors, which were likely negatively impacted by the sequestration.

Commodities finished mixed. Oil ended basically unchanged, up 0.01% at $89.20 a barrel with traders reluctant to pick a direction ahead of the upcoming inventories report. Gold ended down 0.87% at $1,408.80 per ounce.

Here's Where The Markets Stood At Day's End

• Dow Jones Industrial Average up 152.29 (+1.05%) to 152.29
• S&P 500 up 16.28 (+10.4%) to 1,578.78
• Nasdaq Composite Index up 35.78 (+1.11%) to 3,269.33

• Nikkei 225 Index down 0.28%
• Hang Seng Index down 1.08%
• Shanghai China Composite Index down 2.55%
• FTSE 100 Index up 1.82%
• DAX up 2.34%
• CAC 40 up 3.31%%

• (+) LIVE, Launches Velocity Local, a product designed for comprehensive mobile marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, website design and maintenance.
• (+) VECO, Said late Monday Q1 bookings were $70 million. It also said cash at March 31 was up at $588 million.
• (+) CLSN, Surges following encouraging news regarding its treatment being developed for colorectal and recurrent chest wall breast cancer. According to CLSN's VP and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Nicholas Borys, "We have completed a thorough review of the HEAT Study and there is clear evidence that ThermoDox can benefit patients when RFA is optimized. These data are very exciting and consistent with the mechanism of ThermoDox activity."

• (-) TCK, Reported Q1 adjusted profit of $328 million, or $0.56 per share, compared with $544 million, or $0.93 in 2012. According to Yahoo Finance, analysts expected TCK would earn $0.37 per share.
• (-) IIVI, Reported Q3 EPS of $0.25, $0.01 less than analyst estimate of $0.26. Revenue for the quarter came in at $145.17 million versus the consensus estimate of $146.76 million.
• (-) IDXX, Reported Q1 earnings of $0.81 per share, ex one-time items, versus the Capital IQ consensus of $0.82. Revenues were $332.1 million, versus the analyst estimate of $341.42 million. For FY13, the company expects EPS of $3.40 - $3.46, below the analyst estimate of $3.54 EPS. Revenues are expected to be $1.38 billion - $1.39 billion, versus the Street view of $1.4 billion.