Apple's drop inhibits Wall Street rebound

Stocks on Wall Street rose as strong results from a trio of blue-chip companies helped counter mixed readings from the housing market.

Sales of new homes in the US slipped in March, while February sales were revised up to show the best reading since November 2009.

Meanwhile, house prices continued to fall, pushing Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller home-price indexes to new post-crisis lows in February.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 74.54 points, or 0.6%, to 13001.71 at the close (8am NZ time), making up most of Monday's 102-point drop.

The S&P 500 index advanced 0.4%, to 1372.02, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.3% to 2961.60, again pulled down by Apple's 2.1% drop ahead of its quarterly results [UPDATE: Another record quarter saw Apple shares rise 7.1% after hours].

It was Apple's 10th drop in 11 sessions. The stock remains up 39% this year but has stumbled 11% since reaching its all-time closing high on April 9.

Apple, the world's largest company by market capitalisation, represents more than 4% of the S&P 500 and about 12% of the Nasdaq.

Telecommunication stocks led the market higher. AT&T rose 3.8% after the first-quarter earnings rose 5.2%. Verizon Communications firmed 2.4% and 3M rallied 1.6% after first-quarter earnings topped forecasts,

Other markets: Europe up, Asia down
European markets were mostly higher after government-debt auctions in the Netherlands, Spain and Italy allayed investor worries.

The rebound was boosted by gains in bank and auto shares, which had fallen sharply on Monday on weak manufacturing data and political concerns in France and the Netherlands.

The benchmark Stoxx 600 index closed up 1% at 254.37, London's FTSE 100 gained 0.8% to 5709.49, Frankfurt's DAX rose 1% to 6590.41 and Paris' CAC-40 jumped 2.3% to 3169.32.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average lost 0.8% to 9468.04, losing ground for the fourth session in a row.

China's Shanghai Composite finished flat at 2388.83 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.3% to 20677.16.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index rose 0.7% to 17,207.29 after slipping 2.3% in the previous two sessions.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index closed 0.2% higher at 4360.4, with banks leading after inflation data spurred hopes that the Reserve Bank of Australia may cut interest rates as early as next week.

Commodities: Oil, gold up
Crude-oil futures for June delivery edged up 91USc to $US104.02 a barrel. ICE June Brent was recently down 2USc at $US118.699 a barrel.

Gold futures for June delivery rose $US11.80, or 0.7%, to $US1644.40 an ounce.

Currencies: Euro bounces back
The US dollar slipped against the euro but was steady against the yen.

The euro regained its footing as Dutch and other non-German European bonds bounced back from the previous day's rout. It rose to $US1.3200 from $US1.3149 on Monday.

The dollar was little changed at ¥81.20. The pound traded at $1.6148, up from $1.6127.