Goldman shares climb on outlook



Citizens Financial, M&T Bank report Q2 earnings beat



Carvana climbs on debt restructuring plan

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Dow eyes 8 straight days of gains - longest streak in over 3 yrs Dow up 0.44%, S&P 500 up 0.36%, Nasdaq up 0.14%

(Updated at 2:54 a.m. ET/1854 GMT)

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) -

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 index rose modestly on Wednesday, with the blue-chip Dow on pace for its eighth straight day of gains as investors gauged the latest round of corporate earnings, but a decline in Microsoft held the Nasdaq near the unchanged mark.

Bank stocks extended their rally, with the S&P 500 bank index rising 2.01%, poised for its third straight session of gains and eighth in the past nine.

Goldman Sachs rose 1.56% after reporting a 3-year low in profit but CEO David Solomon made positive comments about signs of a recovery in investment banking. That echoed upbeat comments from other big banks on Tuesday.

"Right now we are getting through the raft of companies that are smart and years ago had moved over to more reliable fee based income and that is what people are kind of working through their heads," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.

"Banks are giving you the tenor of what is happening in business."

Citizens Financial jumped 7.75% and M&T Bank rose 2.51% after both beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit. US Bancorp reversed earlier losses to surge 4.6% as the Minneapolis-based lender posted a 28% jump in quarterly net interest income.

The KBW regional bank index climbed

2.60 to its highest intraday level since March 21.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 154.24 points, sex or 0.44%, to 35,106.17; the S&P 500 gained 16.22 points, or 0.36%, at 4,571.2; and the Nasdaq Composite added 19.64 points, or 0.14%, at 14,373.28.

The Dow was on track for its eighth straight session of gains, its longest winning streak since September 2019.

The Nasdaq was weighed down by a

1.2

1% fall in Microsoft after a report that Apple was working on artificial intelligence (AI) offerings. Nvidia and Alphabet also lost ground.

Carvana surged 31.45% after the used-car retailer struck a deal with most of its term bondholders to cut its outstanding debt by more than $1 billion.

Tesla lost 0.42% ahead of results expected after the bell. It will be the first of the megacap growth companies whose outsized gains have fueled a roughly 37% gain in the Nasdaq this year to report earnings this quarter.

Results from Netflix and International Business Machines Corp are also due after the closing bell.

Second-quarter earnings are expected to have declined 8.2%, Refinitiv data showed, more than the 5.7% fall expected at the start of the month.

AT&T rose 8.25% after the telecom company said it did not intend to immediately remove lead cables from Lake Tahoe pending further analysis. Peer Verizon also added 5.4%.

Halliburton

shed 3.14% after posting disappointing quarterly revenue, while Baker Hughes edged up 0.5% after beating earnings expectations.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.80-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.24-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 39 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 135 new highs and 55 new lows.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Richard Chang)