Stocks Opened Slightly Higher

U.S. stocks opened higher on Tuesday, with the Dow industrials extending gains above 18,000 level for the second straight session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately added 61.93 points, or 0.34%, to 18,066.09. The S&P 500 was up 5.53 points, or 0.26%, to 2,099.87. The Nasdaq Composite was down 11.88 points, or 0.24%, to 4,948.14.

Construction of new homes fell in March by the largest amount in five months, with weakness in all regions of the country except the Northeast. Home construction dropped 8.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

Oil prices rose on Tuesday as a strike by oil workers in Kuwait nearly halved crude production from the OPEC member, overshadowing bearish sentiment following Sunday’s failure by producers to agree to freeze output levels. Brent crude futures , the global benchmark, traded at $43.34 a barrel at 1327 GMT, 43 cents above Monday’s close. U.S. crude futures were up 31 cents at $40.09 a
barrel.

Goldman Sachs (GS) had a pretty slow first quarter. Revenue plunged 40% year-over-year to $6.34 billion. This was worse than the $7.11 billion expected by analysts. Earnings per share plunged 56% to $2.68, however that bottom line was better than the $2.48 expected.

Netflix Inc. forecast a huge sequential drop in subscriber growth Monday, which could signal fears about the effects of increased prices and competition. The forecast — 2.5 million new subscribers in the second quarter, versus 6.74 million in the first quarter — leaves a few questions for Netflix investors.

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