By Polya Lesova Stock futures pointed Tuesday to another day of gains on Wall Street, as strong earnings from chemical firm DuPont and European banks including UBS and Deutsche Bank buoyed market sentiment. Traders also digested news of a $17.2 billion quarterly loss at oil giant BP, which also announced the departure of Chief Executive Tony Hayward. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 53 points to 10510. S&P 500 futures gained 6 points to 1115.50 and Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 9.25 points to 1896.70. U.S. stocks ended higher Monday for a third straight session, helping lift the Dow industrials back into positive territory for the year. The Dow closed up 100.81 points, or 1%, to 10525.43. A string of companies will report quarterly results on Tuesday. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. (DD) said its second-quarter net income rose to $1.16 billion, or $1.26 a share, from $417 million, or 46 cents a share, in the year-ago period. The company increased its full-year earnings outlook to reflect strong second-quarter results and the expected continuation of year-over-year gains from higher sales. Aetna Inc. (AET), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) are also scheduled to report results on Tuesday. On the economic front, the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index will be released at 9 a.m., EDT. Data on July consumer confidence will follow at 10 a.m., EDT. BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) reported a $17.2 billion quarterly loss and took $32.2 billion in charges linked to its response to the Gulf of Mexico spill. The loss compared to a profit of $4.39 billion earned in the year-earlier period. BP also named Robert Dudley as its new chief executive, replacing Tony Hayward, starting in October. Shares of BP gained 0.4% in London trading; they have tumbled 31% over the past three months. The Stoxx Europe 600 index edged up 0.6%, as banking shares rose after regulators agreed to soften some of their new capital and liquidity rules and to phase in the reforms over several years. The rules from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will impose plenty of new restrictions, but the version agreed late Monday includes compromises on some key issues, including what can be counted towards capital. The sector was also buoyed by strong earnings reports. Shares of Swiss bank UBS AG (UBS) rallied 9% after it swung to a second-quarter net profit of 2.01 billion Swiss francs ($1.91 billion) from a loss of CHF1.4 billion a year earlier. Germany's Deutsche Bank AG (DB) reported a 9% rise in second-quarter net profit, even as revenue at its investment-banking division declined. The bank's shares gained 2.9% in Frankfurt. "Today's gains are being firmly dictated by the strong demand for bank stocks, after UBS posted better-than-expected earnings while Deutsche bank, whose results were largely in line with expectations, showed loan-loss provisions were decreasing strongly," said Joshua Raymond, market strategist at City Index, in a note. In the currency markets, the dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, fell 0.2% to 81.956. The euro traded gained 0.3% to $1.3026. As for commodities, crude-oil futures rose 27 cents to $79.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Traders are awaiting inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute that's expected to show a decline of 2.3 million barrels in crude supplies, according to a Platts survey of analysts. Gold futures were also little changed, recently trading at $1,183.40 an ounce. In Washington, the U.S. Treasury will auction $38 billion in 2-year notes on Tuesday afternoon. -By Polya Lesova; 49 69 29725517; AskNewswires@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires July 27, 2010 07:43 ET (11:43 GMT)
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