"On the fundamental side, it's a pretty positive backdrop here," said Joe Liro, equity strategist at Stone & McCarthy. "We have a solid economy, a Fed that still shows signs of being relatively patient ... and you've got just absolutely great earnings numbers."

...

The Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index improved to 92.9 in April from 88.5 in March while the number of Americans who said jobs were hard to get fell to its lowest level since November 2002. Wall Street economists expected the index to remain steady at about 88.7, according to a survey conducted by. See Economic Report.

News on existing home sales was also good with the National Association of Realtors reporting that sales rose 5.7 percent in March to 6.48 million units, well ahead of economists' forecasts for a 1 percent rise to 6.18 million units.