Overnight Markets: Wall Street inches higher on Walgreen earnings report

US stocks rose on Tuesday after Walgreen’s better-than-expected earnings fuelled a rally in consumer-staples and health companies and investors speculated the Federal Reserve will purchase more debt to bolster economy.

 The Dow Jones industrial average gained 46 points, or 0.43%, to end at 10,858. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 9.4% so far in September with a gain of five points, or 0.49%, to 1,148 yesterday. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 10 points, or 0.41%, to 2,380.

Decline in the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index to 48.5, lower than forecast, from 53.2 the prior month fuelled speculation of another round of quantitative easing.  The Fed yesterday acquired $550 million of Treasury Inflation Protected securities as part of a scheme to reinvest principal payments on its mortgage holdings into long-term government debt.

Stocks in consumer-staples surged after Walgreen reported that its fourth-quarter earnings stood at were 53 cents a share, beating the 44-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The drugstore chain climbed 11%. Rival CVS Caremark gained 2.7%.

Investors started putting money into health companies after the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by pharmaceutical companies seeking to restrict thousands of public hospitals from suing over a federal discount-drug programme. Pfizer gained 1.5% and Johnson & Johnson rose 0.6%.

In other company news, shares of Endo Pharmaceuticals Holdings rose 8.1% after it agreed to buy private generics maker Qualitest Pharmaceuticals for about $1.2 billion.

In current trading, Asian stocks inched higher on Wednesday as Shinsei Bank raised its profit forecast and the yen weakened.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.4% to 127 - a five-month high - as of 9:41 a.m. in Tokyo. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 1% after the central bank’s Tankan sentiment index advanced seven points this month to eight.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index was trading 0.6% higher, while New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index rose 0.1%. South Korea’s Kospi Index climbed 0.6%. Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.04% to 2,610.

In company news, Canon was up 1.9% after the yen’s depreciation bolstered the outlook for export earnings. Shinsei Bank surged 5.2% in Tokyo after it raised its fiscal 2012 net-income forecast by 59%.