Rally in stocks cut short by oil stumble but fundamentals "strong enough"

Stocks rose on Tuesday.

The US stock market kicked off 2017 trading by resuming its rally. The S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent.

Elsewhere, the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.7 percent while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index excluding Japan Index rose 0.4 percent.

However, the stock rally was held back by a fall in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 2.6 percent on Tuesday while Brent fell 2.4 percent amid doubts over the ability of OPEC and its partners to balance the market.

Gene McGillian, manager of market research for Tradition Energy, said that “there’s a lot of nervousness about whether these guys will follow through with their cuts and how fast U.S. and Canadian production picks up”.

In spite of the stumble in oil prices, some analysts think that stocks will continue to rally. Peter Andersen, chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust Co, thinks that “the fundamentals are strong enough to keep the market rising”.