Stocks Rose, Dow Broke 5-day Skid

U.S. stocks ended Tuesday with the best gains in two weeks, as indexes rebounded from heavy losses in the  previous three sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 90.68 points, or 0.57%, to 15,928.56. The S&P 500 closed up 10.94 points, or 0.61%, at 1,792.50. The Nasdaq Composite rose 14.35 points, or 0.35%, to 4,097.96.

Turkey’s central bank sharply raised all of its main interest rates on Wednesday, bowing to market pressure to stem a slide in the lira fuelled by political turbulence at home and fears about cuts in U.S. monetary stimulus.

AT&T posted stronger-than-expected earnings for the final quarter of 2013, helped by higher revenue from mobile and Internet service subscribers. It earned $6.9 billion, or $1.31 per share, in the October-December period. That’s up from a loss of $3.8 billion, or 68 cents per share, in the same period a year earlier.

VMware Inc.’s VMW -1.58% fourth-quarter profit soared 63% as the virtualization-software maker posted robust growth in license revenue. It reported a profit of $335 million, or 77 cents a share, up from $205.8
million, or 47 cents a share, a year earlier.

A 13% increase in sales and a lower tax rate helped Amgen Inc. to achieve better-than-expected earnings and revenue during the fourth quarter. Net income for the period was $1.02 billion, or $1.33 a share, compared
with $788 million, or $1.01 a share, for the same period a year ago. Sales were $5.01 billion against last year’s $4.42 billion.