Stocks rose on Tuesday as solid manufacturing data in the United States and Europe helped investors turn their attention away from the turmoil in the Middle East to hopes that a global economic recovery was on track.

The U.S. manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest pace since May 2004 in January, and prices paid jumped more than expected, according to an industry report.

It is a modest increase telling us that the manufacturing sector of the economy continues to improve somewhat steadily since July of 2010, said Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of Hugh Johnson Advisors LLC in Albany, New York.

This is on balance, good news and I defy anybody to find a problem with this.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> advanced 88.93 points, or 0.75 percent, at 11,980.86. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> was up 14.02 points, or 1.09 percent, at 1,300.14. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> jumped 31.51 points, or 1.17 percent, at 2,731.59.

Investors appeared to shrug off the tumultuous events in Egypt as more than 200,000 Egyptians poured into central Cairo in the biggest demonstration so far against President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian rule.

United Parcel Service Inc rose 3.5 percent to $74.10 after profit at the world's largest package delivery group beat estimates and it forecast record-high earnings in 2011.

Dow component Pfizer Inc

climbed 4 percent to $18.95 after the drugmaker announced an additional $5 billion stock buyback plan, even as it cut its sales projection for 2012.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Egypt Manufacturing