Stocks Soar Ahead of HP, Dell Results

Stocks soared Tuesday ahead of critical earnings reports from technology giants HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL).

Better than expected earnings from Barclays (NYSE: BCS) boosted financial stocks and sent the rest of the market nearly 2 percent higher, but for technology investors, the biggest news is yet to come.

HP will release its quarterly results after the close on Wednesday, followed by Dell on Thursday. HP is expected to report earnings of $1.06 a share on a 4.2 percent rise in sales to $30 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Dell is expected to report earnings of 27 cents a share on a 3.1 percent sales increase to $13.85 billion, as growth returns to the IT sector following the worst recession since the 1930s.

Other tech names reporting with HP on Wednesday include Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) and Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT).

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY), Hutchinson (NASDAQ: HTCH), Seagate (NASDAQ: STX) and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) were among the tech sector’s stronger names. eBay gained 4 percent, Seagate 5.5 percent, Western Digital 7 percent, and Hutchinson 10 percent. Disk drive makers benefited from upbeat comments from Caris & Co.

But Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) and Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) were left out of the rally, falling around 2 percent each.