Tech, energy help Wall Street stay in black
US stocks rallied late on Tuesday to end higher for a second straight day as technology and energy shares gained, while Target's warning about excess inventory weighed on retail stocks for much of the session. Apple Inc shares climbed 1.8 percent despite news earlier in the day that the company must change the connector on iPhones sold in Europe by 2024 after EU countries and lawmakers agreed to a single charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras. Microsoft shares added 1.4 percent. At the same time, shares of Target Corp fell 2.3 percent after the retailer said it would have to offer deeper discounts and cut back on stocking discretionary items. Equity trading was choppy, with indexes down early in the day, but the market has been recovering from recent steep losses. Recently, "we've had a nice bounce ... and in general investors are feeling better right now. But we are very much in a seesaw market as we've seen all year," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. "At some point, we will put in a bottom, and the market will move higher. We have a hard time believing that's any time soon, given a number of fundamental issues overhanging the market," he said. "Certainly what we've seen today from Target isn't good news in terms of the consumer." Long-dated US Treasury yields tumbled after the Target news, however, as it fueled some speculation that the worst of inflation may be in the past. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8 percent, to 33,180, the S&P 500 gained 0.95 percent, to 4,161 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.94 percent, to 12,175. Consumer price data on Friday is expected to show that inflation remained elevated in May, though core consumer prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy sectors, likely ticked down on an annual basis. Not all retailers were in the red. Kohl's shares jumped 9.5 percent after news the department store chain entered exclusive talks with retail store operator Franchise Group over a potential sale that would value it at nearly US$8 billion. (Reuters)