U.S. stocks rally amid earnings reports

U.S. stocks traded higher in the morning session Tuesday as Wall Street pondered over a batch of earnings reports.

By midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 43.55 points, or 0.24 percent, to 18,572.84. The S&P 500 added 5.32 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,186.21. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 22.21 points, or 0.43 percent, to 5,235.35.

With no major economic report due Tuesday, investors shifted their focus from the U.S. Federal Reserve to corporate earnings reports.

After Monday's closing bell, Resolute Energy Corp., a U.S. oil and gas company, said its losses narrowed in the second quarter of 2016. Its shares spiked nearly 20 percent around midday Tuesday.

Shares of Coach Inc., a U.S. luxury retailer, fell over 1 percent around midday Tuesday despite its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report that beat market expectations.

The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the second quarter of 2016 are expected to decrease 2.6 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to decline 0.3 percent.

Analysts thought that investor optimism from the stellar July jobs data also provided some upward jolts to the market.

The U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 255,000 in July, well above economists' estimates of 180,000, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9 percent.

On Monday, U.S. stocks reversed early gains to close mildly lower as investors continued to digest the country's robust July jobs report. Enditem