Stock market today: Dow rises as earnings season heats up; Microsoft Q2 EPS Beats

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The Dow notched a third-straight day of gains Tuesday as investors weighed up a slew of quarterly results as the earnings season continued to gather pace.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%, or 104 points, the S&P 500 was down 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite ended 0.27% lower.

Industrials led the broader market higher following an 8% surge in PACCAR (NASDAQ:PCAR) after the truck manufacturing company reported quarterly results that beat on both the top and bottom lines.

Defense companies including Raytheon Technologies Corp (NYSE:RTX) and Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) also underpinned gains in the sector following the latter’s quarterly results that topped estimates.

Elsewhere on the earnings front, material maker 3M Company (NYSE:MMM), a major dow component, slumped more than 6% after quarterly earnings missed estimates and the company flagging a slowdown demand announcing 2,500 layoffs.

Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION), meanwhile, closed more than 1% lower as its better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings per share was offset by a gloomy outlook as CEO Harris Simmons said the bank was socking away more money to protect against a slowing economy.

Tech was roughly unchanged on the day as gains in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) were offset by a wobble in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) as the latter attracted further regulatory scrutiny.

The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search-engine giant violated antitrust laws by abusing its monopoly in ad technology.

Chip stocks gave back some gains from a day earlier on struggles in Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) as Bernstein downgraded the chipmaker to market perform from outperform, citing weakness in the personal computer market and new parts markets.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which ended the day just below the flatline, surged after its quarterly earnings topped Wall Street estimates driven by growth in its cloud business.

In meme-related news, Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) continued to put the squeeze on short sellers, rallying more than 15% even as the retailer is widely expected to be on the brink of bankruptcy.