1. STOCKS BOUNCE BACK THANKS TO STRONG CORPORATE EARNINGS
U.S. stocks rallied broadly early Tuesday, regaining some the ground they lost the day before. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial closed down 266 points — its deepest one-day plunge since Nov. 7. On Tuesday morning the blue-chip index was up by around 100 points as gold prices bounced back from their biggest drop in decades and several bellwether companies, including Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola, reported better than expected quarterly earnings. [Bloomberg]
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2. HOUSING STARTS RISE
New-home construction surged in March, exceeding a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1 million for the first time since June 2008, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. That amounted to a 7 percent jump over the February figures, suggesting that the housing recovery was picking up as the spring buying season gets underway. The biggest gains came in apartment construction, which increased by nearly 31 percent to an annual rate of 417,000. Single-family-home starts fell by 4.8 percent to an annual rate of 619,000. Overall, the March home-construction pace was nearly 46 percent higher than a year earlier. [Associated Press]
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3. LOW-COST IPHONE EXPECTED TO CANNIBALIZE SALES
In 2014, Apple could sell 75 million of the low-cost iPhones it's expected to release in September, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says in a note released Tuesday. The budget version of Apple's popular smartphone, he said, will probably sell for around $300, without subsidies. Munster also predicted that the gadget would cannibalize sales of more expensive iPhones, with Apple losing roughly one pricey iPhone sale for every three low-cost versions it sells. That would knock down Apple's share of the high-end market to 37 percent from 43 percent, but give it an 11 percent share of the low-end market, instead of zero. [CNET]
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4. GOLDMAN SACHS PROFITS RISE ON SMART INVESTMENTS
Goldman Sachs reported stronger than expected quarterly profits. The company attributed the 5.5 percent increase to healthy returns on its own investments, as well as underwriting fees. The Wall Street bank's net income of $2.19 billion amounted to $4.29 per share for its investors, up from $2.07 billion, or $3.92 per share, in the first three months of last year. The news gave the company's stock a lift early Tuesday, but it sank into the red as investors digested Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's remarks noting that even though the first quarter was "generally solid," there's still a cloud of "potential macro-economic instability" overhead. [Reuters]
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5. GOOGLE UNVEILS GOOGLE GLASS SPECS
Google has finally revealed the official specs for its wearable Google Glass gadgets. The high-tech gear will have bone conduction audio and a five-megapixel camera. It will be able to shoot video with 720p resolution, with a display that will look like "a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away," according to a Google support page. The device also will support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with 12 GB of "usable memory" syncing with Google cloud storage. A select group of 8,000 people are expected to get to try out the high-tech headgear soon. [USA Today]
