By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – Wall Street rose Tuesday, led by tech, as investors weighed up a jump in consumer confidence against a resurgence in Covid-19 cases that threatens the pace of economic recovery.
The Dow fell 0.21%, or 55 points, theS&P 500 slipped rose 0.64% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.15%.
Several states including California and Texas have pushed back plans to further ease restrictions on reopening businesses in the face of an ongoing rise in infections.
Cases in the U.S rose by at least 43% and deaths increased by 20%, a Reuters analysis on Tuesday showed.
Following the rise in cases, airlines and cruise operators were under pressure, with American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and Carnival (NYSE:CUK) giving up gains to trade lower.
Tech, which has recently taken a breather, resumed its climb higher, buoyed by a jump in chip stocks following positive earnings reports from companies in the sector.
Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) rose 4.2% after its fiscal third-quarter results and guidance topped consensus estimates, led by growth in cloud demand.
"We do believe that cloud demand in the second half of the calendar year will continue to be healthy for us," said Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron’s chief executive, on a conference call.
Xilinx (NASDAQ:XLNX) jumped 7% after raising its fiscal first-quarter revenue guidance. The company said it now expected revenue of $720 million to $734 million, after previously guiding revenue in a range of $660 million to $720 million.
Lam Research (NASDAQ:LRCX), NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) were also among the biggest gainers, pushing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up more than 2%.
Energy, however, lagged the move higher in the broader market even as oil prices rose from session lows.
Elsewhere, Boeing (NYSE:BA) fell 6% giving up some of its gains after Norwegian Air canceled orders for 97 Boeing 737 Max and 787 jets, and said It would seek compensation for the grounding of the 737.
On the economic front, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence gauge rose to 98.1 this month from 85.9 in May, beating economists’ forecast for a reading of 90.8.