The stock gods decided to buy the dip on Tuesday, a day after the biggest sell-off in about three months. Despite a lack of market-moving economic reports, the losses of Monday were gradually bought into on Tuesday after retail sales reports, import and export prices, and even after a fairly weak report from the National Federation of Independent Business. Even a 3% drop in the Nikkei 225 in Japan failed to spoil the mood of US investors on Tuesday. The markets even shrugged off hawkish Fed president commentary on rate hikes and bond purchase tapering.

At the 4:00 p.m. closing bell, the DJIA was up 0.6% and the S&P 500 Index was up by 1.03%. The NASDAQ was effectively at decade highs after a 1.66% gain.  These are the five DJIA stocks that dominated the market on Tuesday.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) was the beneficiary of a key analyst upgrade, one which gave a $29 price target for the stock. What was so unusual about this upgrade is that it came a day or two ahead of the company earnings report. Shares were trading up 3.9% at $26.50 in the final minutes of trading. Shares even hit a new 52-week high of $26.55 on the day.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) was up on two issues. One was potential Intel sympathy, but another issue is that the stock was merely bouncing from the drop seen yesterday due to rumors of a new Windows version coming sooner than expected. Microsoft’s stock was up 2.3% at $35.78 in the final minutes of trading.

3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) was the leader of conglomerates and among DJIA stocks on Tuesday. Nomura Securities said that this was not cheap but could still lead industrials higher. 3M shares were trading up by 1.9% at $137.21 in the last few minutes of trading.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) saw its stock higher on further reports that more bidders are interested in the drug giant’s generics business. This unit had close to run-rate of $9 billion in annualized sales. Pfizer shares were up 1.5% at $31.00 in the final minutes of trading.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) was hardly a true leader on the day, but this was the one of two major bank stock reports on fourth quarter earnings. There was a drop due to all of those settlement charges, but the stock managed to get out of the red and shares were still up by 4 cents at $57.74 in the final minutes of trading.

What was very interesting, and very rare, was the ex-DJIA stocks did better than most DJIA stock on average (handily!). The following prices and gains were seen in the final minutes of trading on Tuesday from the ex-DJIA members:

• Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) was up 1.99% at $10.30
• Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC) was up 1.8% at $16.73
• Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) was up by 2.5% at $28.82

Wednesday will mark another big day for the markets. Key earnings reports will come from Bank of America, CSX Corp., and the Kinder Morgan entities. Also on deck for Wednesday are economic reports are Producer Price index (wholesale inflation), Empire State Manufacturing (New York), EIA Petroleum and Refining data, and the Fed’s Beige Book.

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