Markets rise as impressive earnings lead to bullish outlook

Markets mostly rose on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent and the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.3 percent.

However, the Nikkei 225 was flat as the Bank of Japan concluded its meeting on Tuesday by leaving monetary policy unchanged.

In the US, consumer stocks led gains after Mondelez and Kellogg reported better-than-expected results.

“You look at the earnings out of these big players and they continue to impress,” said Steve Chiavarone, portfolio manager with Federated Investors in New York. “It strikes me that that leads you to a much more bullish outlook for the fourth quarter.”

Indeed, Charles Dumas, chief economist at Lombard Street Research, suggested that there is a notion among investors that “the chief risk in today’s markets is missing what remains of the cyclical upside”.

“So the big risk is a new bubble, not a near-term bear market,” he wrote.