Stocks advanced Tuesday, indicating Wall Street may continue to rally after their first weekly gain since April, on hopes China may unleash more spending measures and Greek election polls pointing to support for pro-bailout parties.
The Dow Jones industrial average was lately up over 80 points, having given up some of its early rally.
The official Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday, citing unidentified sources, that China's biggest banks appeared to have accelerated lending toward the end of this month as Beijing starts to fast-track its approval of infrastructure investments in an effort to stem sagging growth.
Investors were also encouraged by weekend polls in Greece that showed the conservative New Democracy party, which backs the country's international bailout, has a lead over the leftist SYRIZA party, which opposes it ahead of a June 17 election. In Ireland, voters appear poised to reluctantly approve the EU fiscal treaty on Thursday.
"As long as there are no horror stories out of Europe, we look fine," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago.
U.S. markets were closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of U.S. single-family home prices edged 0.1 percent higher in 20 metropolitan areas in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, falling short of economists' forecasts for a gain of 0.2 percent. However, it was the second consecutive month of gains which could indicate stabilization in the housing market.
Shares of Facebook slipped below $30 a share. Options on the Internet giant will be offered on U.S. options exchanges for the first time Tuesday.
Opera Software shares soared more than 20 percent in Oslo on Tuesday on talk Facebook was in discussion to buy the firm, while analysts said competition from Google Inc and others could push the price tag of any deal above $1 billion.
JPMorgan Chase & Co has sold an estimated $25 billion of profitable securities in an effort to prop up earnings after suffering trading losses tied to the bank's now-infamous "London Whale," derivatives losses at its London office, compounding the cost of those trades.
Reuters contributed to this report.
