U.S. stocks rise ahead of Bernanke, eyes on Italy; Dow Jones up 0.58%

Investing.com - U.S. stocks opened higher on Tuesday, as markets awaited a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke later in the day, although sentiment remained under pressure after Italy's parliamentary elections sparked fresh concerns over the situation in the euro zone.

During early U.S. trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.58%, the S&P 500 index climbed 0.41%, while the Nasdaq Composite index added 0.11%.

Italy’s center-left coalition, led by the Democratic Party's Pier Luigi Bersani, won the majority of votes in the lower house and was likely to receive the mandate to form a government.

However, projections indicated that no party would be able to form a majority in the upper house, leading to a deadlock.

Meanwhile, market participants were looking ahead to congressional testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke later in the trading day, after last week’s minutes of the central bank’s January meeting showed that some policymakers favored an early end to the Fed's monetary easing measures.

Among earnings, Home Depot surged 4.65% after the home improvement retailer posted results that topped expectations and said it would buy back as much as USD17 billion of its own shares.

Department store retailer Macy's added to gains, rallying 4%, after it reported quarterly results that exceeded analysts' expectations.

In the tech sector, Intel jumped 1.64% after it agreed to make chips on behalf of Altera, taking a step toward opening its manufacturing technology to customers on a larger scale.

Financial stocks were broadly lower on the other hand, as shares in Bank of America retreated 0.36% and JP Morgan tumbled 1.01%, while Goldman Sachs and Citigroup plummeted 1.47% and 2.58% respectively.

Goldman Sachs was set to begin its annual job cutting process as soon as this week, according to a Bloomberg report.

Separately, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon was reportedly preparing to lead his new team of managers in an annual day of presentations to Wall Street about the outlook for businesses operated by the U.S. lender.

Facebook was also on the downside, with shares plummeting 1.29%. The social media giant agreed on Monday to take harassing postings off tribute pages for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting after meeting with Connecticut’s attorney general about the sites.

Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were sharply lower. The EURO STOXX 50 plunging 2.11%, France’s CAC 40 plummeted 1.72%, Germany's DAX tumbled 1.55%, while Britain's FTSE 100 retreated 1.10%.

During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 1.32%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index plunged 2.26%.

Later in the day, the U.S. was to release a report on consumer confidence and official data on new home sales.