(Updates to late afternoon)
By Ellis Mnyandu
NEW YORK, March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks gained on
Tuesday as a bounce in commodity prices lifted shares of
miners and other resource companies, countering a drag from
Bank of America Corp <BAC.N> and data that fueled concerns
about the economy.
Investors took comfort from a recovery in the prices of
gold and other precious metals, sending shares of aluminum
producer Alcoa Inc <AA.N> up 2.4 percent and those of
Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc <FCX.N> jumped about 4
percent.
And as the market had rallied on Monday to book its
strongest 2-day advance in nearly four months, some investors
opted to book profits, traders said.
The bounce in commodity stocks helped temper worries
fueled by a report that showed U.S. consumer confidence sank
to a five-year low in March and data that that showed further
deterioration in housing.
"Commodities are up today and that's kind of easing fears
of a commodity blow-up," said Cleveland Rueckert, an analyst
with Birinyi Associates Inc in Stamford, Connecticut. "A lot
of the bad news is now priced into the market and people are
starting look further down the road."
The Dow Jones industrial average <> rose 12.13 points,
or 0.10 percent, to 12,560.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
<.SPX> rose 6.48 points, or 0.48 percent, to 1,356.36. The
Nasdaq Composite Index <> gained 14.77 points, or 0.63
percent, to 2,341.52.
Alcoa shares climbed to $35.88 on the New York Stock
Exchange, while those of Freeport-McMoran climbed to $92.47.
Monsanto Co <MON.N> was another bright spot on the
commodities front after the U.S. agricultural biotechnology
company raised its profit forecasts. Its shares jumped 9.8
percent to $114.52 on the NYSE.
Shares of financial services companies were among the top
drags following an earnings downgrade of Merrill Lynch <MER.N>
and a rating cut on Bank of America Corp <BAC.N> over exposure
to the bursting of the housing bubble.
Merrill Lynch shares slipped 0.3 percent to $48.25, while
those of Bank of America, the No. 2 U.S. bank by assets, slid
3.3 percent to $41.06, a drop that made the stock the top drag
on both the Dow and the S&P 500. The second-heaviest weight on
the Dow was International Business Machines Corp <IBM.N>,
which shed nearly 1 percent to $118.01.
On the Nasdaq, Qualcomm Inc <QCOM.O> shares led advancers,
up 2.5 percent at $40.89, after the wireless chip maker's
stock was raised to a "buy" from "neutral" at Merrill Lynch,
according to theflyonthewall.com, a financial Web site.
In economic news, U.S. consumer confidence took an
unexpectedly sharp hit in March, dropping to a five-year low,
a Conference Board report showed [].
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight and the
Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index both reported
further drops in U.S. home prices. (for more see
[])
(Reporting by Ellis Mnyandu; Editing by Jan Paschal)
