Investing.com - The S&P 500 closed modestly higher Tuesday, registering a record high for the second day in a row as traders continued to cheer the U.S. and Mexico reaching a bilateral trade agreement.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 0.06%. The S&P 500 rose 0.05%, while the Nasdaq Composite rose about 0.15%. The S&P 500 rose above an unprecedented 2,900 level intraday before retreating.
The Trump administration's bilateral agreement with Mexico on Monday continued to underpin investor hopes that a global trade war would be averted, which would likely support investor appetite for risker assets like stocks.
Ongoing optimism over trade comes as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday the Trump administration's objective "is to try to get Canada on board quickly." U.S.-Canada trade talks got underway on Tuesday.
Yet trade talks with China look set to remain at an impasse for the near term, at least after Mnuchin suggested that trade negotiations with the other partners would likely take priority.
"Well, our objective, and we've put them in three categories: the first was really NAFTA, the second is dealing with the EU, which we are making progress on, and the third is China," Mnuchin told CNBC.
Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and Boeing (NYSE:BA), which are trade bellwethers because of their large international exposure, gave back some of their gains from a day earlier.
Beyond trade, quarterly earnings from U.S. corporates also garnered investor attention.
Shoe retailer DSW (NYSE:DSW) closed 20% higher after the company reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped estimates and guided full-year adjusted earnings higher.
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) fell 5% as guidance fell short of estimates. The electronics retailer guided third-quarter earnings in a range of $0.79 to $0.84 a share, missing expectations for $0.91 a share.
Falling energy stocks, meanwhile, kept gains in the broader market in check as oil prices reversed gains from a day earlier ahead of a fresh supply of U.S. petroleum data, expected to show a slower pace of inventory drawdowns.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for October delivery lost 34 cents cents to settle at $68.53 a barrel.
Offsetting downside momentum in the major averages, somewhat, was upbeat U.S. data pointing to underlying strength in the economy.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence gauge rose to 133.4 in August from 127.9 in July, beating economists’ forecast for a reading of 126.7. That was the highest level of consumer confidence in nearly 18 years.
On the corporate news front, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) shares fell nearly 1% after President Donald Trump lashed out against the company's Google search engine, accusing it of rigging its results to show "bad" stories when users search for "Trump" news.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Coty (NYSE:COTY), Pacific Gas & Electric (NYSE:PCG) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) and Apache (NYSE:APA) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.