Empresas y finanzas

Wall Street struggles as Greece weighs on investors

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer and financial stocks edged up on Tuesday after the S&P 500 fell for four of the past five sessions, but the broader market struggled as the political impasse in Greece weighed on investor sentiment.

Quarterly results helped boost the S&P consumer discretionary sector, with TJX and Dick's Sporting Goods both up more than 6 percent. The S&P retail sector index <.RLX> rose 0.9 percent.

But broader market gains were held back after attempts to form a government in Greece collapsed and sent European equities lower on the prospect those opposed to the terms of an EU bailout could sweep to victory in new elections.

U.S. retail sales rose 0.1 percent in April, slightly under expectations, while consumer prices were flat in the month. A report on manufacturing in New York state was sharply higher than expected.

"Retail sales were not so bad and Dick's and TJMaxx did well, they're indicating their business is going to be steady in the next quarter and they don't see deceleration in the consumer level," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

Amazon shares also lifted retailers and were a boost to the Nasdaq after Credit Suisse upgraded the stock to "outperform" and raised its price target to $270. The shares were recently up 3 percent at $229.65.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 25.13 points, or 0.20 percent, to 12,720.48. The S&P 500 Index <.SPX> edged up 2.46 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1,340.81. The Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> gained 15.39 points, or 0.53 percent, to 2,917.97.

The S&P 500 index closed at its lowest level since February on Monday. Concerns about the situation in Europe have been a primary mover for the weakness, which have taken the benchmark index down more than 4 percent so far this month.

Groupon Inc late Monday reported its first quarterly profit, sending shares 17.6 percent higher to $13.80.

Banking stocks, which have suffered in the recent declines, were among the day's top percentage gainers.

Bank of America Corp rose 1.6 percent to $7.47. JPMorgan Chase & Co rose 2.6 percent to $36.73. JPMorgan shares have slumped over the past week after suffering multi-billion trading losses that have resulted in the exit of a top executive.

Avon Products Inc tumbled 10.6 percent to $18.54 after Coty Inc withdrew its $10.7 billion takeover bid for the company, saying it had missed a deadline to start discussions.

Facebook Inc has increased the price range in Silicon Valley's biggest-ever initial public offering to raise more than $12 billion, giving the biggest social network a potential market capitalization exceeding $100 billion.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

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