Stocks closed higher on Wall Street, marking the third straight gain for the S&P 500.
The benchmark hadn’t been able to string together more than two gains in a row since mid-September. The gains Tuesday came as the flow of company earnings reports stepped up. The S&P 500 climbed 1.6 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq rose 2.3 percent. Small-company stocks did even better.
