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New York - Wall Street stocks rose on Tuesday for the second straight session after a report showed third-quarter US economic growth in line with expectations at 2%.
The Commerce Department trimmed its estimate of US growth in the July to September period to 2% from 2.1%, in part because of lower business investment in inventories and the drag from the strong dollar on exports.
Yet analysts took heart from a solid 3% rise in personal consumption expenditures, which drive about two-thirds of the activity in the US economy.
"I would characterize it as solid growth," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS.
"Once you get past some of these anomalies having to do with inventories and with weakness overseas, the good news is the domestic parts of the economy are very solid."
The broad-based S&P 500 finished up 0.9%, notching up its second straight gain after dropping 3.3% on Thursday and Friday.
In Madrid the IBEX 35 index rose by 0.5%. The Spanish market had slumped by 3.6% on Monday following an election that has left the country in political limbo with the ruling party losing its majority in parliament.
A Barclays note laid out five potential scenarios in Spain, including another election.
"On the economic side, we have seen no sign of a slowdown in economic activity," Barclays said.
"For the markets, as the political uncertainty is likely to continue at least through the beginning of 2016, we expect continuing underperformance of Spanish assets."
London's commodity-heavy FTSE 100 was boosted by gains in Anglo American, Glencore and Royal Dutch Shell as oil prices stabilised.
Paris ended with a small gain and Frankfurt a small loss. The Nikkei 225 in Japan dropped modestly.
The dollar retreated a bit against the euro.
US oil prices rose 33 cents to $36.14 a barrel, edging above European benchmark Brent North Sea crude for the first time since January.
John Kilduff, a founding partner at Again Capital, said the push of WTI above Brent could mark a "new phase" between the two contracts in the wake of last week's measure passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama to lift a 40-year ban on US oil exports.
However, Kilduff noted that Tuesday's trade may have been distorted by low trading volume as well as by end-of-year crude destocking in the US Gulf Coast for tax purposes.
