U.S. Stocks Remain Mostly Higher After Recovering From Initial Weakness

Stocks recovered from an initial move to the downside early in the session and remain mostly positive in afternoon trading on Tuesday. The Dow is moving higher for the seventh consecutive session, climbing to its best intraday level in well over a month.

Currently, the major averages are off their highs of the session but still in positive territory. The Nasdaq is up 140.92 points or 1.0 percent at 13,659.70, the S&P 500 is up 16.26 points or 0.4 percent at 4,382.24 and the Dow is up 61.52 points or 0.2 percent at 34,157.38.

Profit taking contributed to the initial weakness on Wall Street, as some traders looked to cash in on the recent strength in the markets.

Selling pressure waned shortly after the start of trading, however, with continued optimism about the outlook for interest rates contributing to the subsequent rebound.

The rebound by stocks also came as treasury yields have shown a notable move back to the downside after surging in the previous session.

Meanwhile, traders are also looking ahead to speeches by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday and Thursday.

Powell is due to deliver opening remarks at the Division of Research and Statistics Centennial Conference on Wednesday and participate in a policy panel discussion before the 24th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference on Thursday.

Traders are likely to pay close attention to Powell’s remarks, looking for additional confirmation the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged for the foreseeable future.

In U.S. economic news, a report released by the Commerce Department showed the U.S. trade deficit widened by more than expected in the month of September.

The Commerce Department said the trade deficit increased to $61.5 billion in September from a revised $58.7 billion in August.

Economists had expected the trade deficit to climb to $60.2 billion from the $58.3 billion originally reported for the previous month.

The wider than expected deficit came as the value of imports surged by 2.7 percent to…