Tuesday's Stock Market Open: US Equities Rebound From Monday’s Steep Losses

U.S. stocks traded higher on Tuesday, rebounding from Monday’s heavy losses, ahead of Apple’s earnings release.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 243.52 points to 28,779.32 while the S&P 500 rose 36.38 points to 3,280.01 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 127.26 points to 9,266.59.

“Stocks are attempting to stabilize and rebound although the effort is quite tentative and lacks conviction,” said Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, in a note.

Chinese health authorities that 106 people have died from the coronavirus and the number of confirmed cases exceeded 4,500. Many major cities in China have been placed under lockdown.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the city-state will close some border checkpoints and restrict flights and train services from mainland China.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of State raised its travel advisory for China to Level 3 from Level 2 asking Americans to “reconsider travel to China due to the novel coronavirus.”

President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that the U.S. is “in very close communication with China concerning the virus.”

“Risk appetite is unlikely to improve until we start getting news that the virus is under control,” DBS Group Holdings Ltd. strategists Philip Wee and Eugene Leow wrote in a note. “For now, the lack of positive news flow is likely to keep investors on the defensive.”

Trump also tweeted his criticism of the Federal Reserve ahead of its meeting .

“The Fed should get smart [and] lower the rate to make our interest competitive with other countries which pay much lower even though we are, by far, the high standard. We would then focus on paying off [and] refinancing debt! There is almost no inflation-this is the time," he wrote.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that orders for core capital goods excluding aircraft, dropped by 0.9% in December -- the largest such decline since April.

In December, overall orders for durable goods gained 2.4% after falling 3.1% in the prior month.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index increased 3.5% on an annualized basis in November, up from 3.2% in October. Price rises were especially robust in Phoenix, Charlotte and Tampa

“With the month’s 3.5% increase in the national composite index, home prices are currently 59% above the trough reached in February 2012, and 15% above their pre-financial crisis peak,” said Craig J. Lazzara, managing director and global head of Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “November’s results were broad-based, with gains in every city in our 20-city composite.”

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index jumped to 131.6 this month from 126.5 in December.

Apple (AAPL) will report its quarterly earnings after Tuesday’s close.

Markets in mainland China and Hong Kong were closed for the lunar new year holiday. Japan’s Nikkei-225 dropped 0.55%.

In Europe markets finished higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 gained 0.93%, France’s CAC-40 rose 1.07% and Germany’s DAX also climbed 0.9%.

Crude oil futures gained 0.98% at $53.66 per barrel and Brent crude rose 1.08% at $59.21. Gold futures fell 0.6%.

The euro slipped 0.14% at $1.005 while the pound sterling fell 0.49% at $1.2994.