Stocks Surge at the Start on Earnings

U.S. stocks opened sharply higher on Tuesday, as investors put global debt concerns on the back burner to focus on earnings. A sharp rise in housing starts also supported investor optimism. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 111.90 points, or 0.90%, at 12,497.06. The S&P 500 was higher by 11.02 points, or 0.84%, at 1,316.46, and the Nasdaq was ahead by 42.11 points, or 1.52%, at 2,807.22.

Goldman Sachs’s earnings more than doubled in the second quarter, but a slump in its bond trading business kept its bottom-line results well below what analysts were expecting. The investment bank earned $1.05 billion in the three months ending in June, up from $453 million in the same period a year ago.

Bank of America Corp. reported a loss of $9.1billion during the second quarter, partly due to an $8.5 billion settlement with investors.It earned $3.7 billion, or 33 cents per share. That compares with net income of $3.1 billion, or 27 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. The bank’s revenue declined 54 percent to $13.2 billion from $29.1 billion in the same period last year.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders began work on a seasonally adjusted 629,000 homes last month, a 14.6 percent increase from May.