Stocks climbed Tuesday, putting the Dow on track for its seventh-consecutive gain, after investors shrugged off China's interest rate hike for the second time in just over a month and a handful of disappointing earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up almost 70 points, led by McDonald's and General Electric .
Intel , ExxonMobil and Cisco were among the blue-chip laggards.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rose. The CBOE Volatility Index, widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, fell near 16.
A burst of merger activityand upbeat corporate profit outlooks had boosted investor confidence in the previous session with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting fresh 2-1/2 year highs.
Among the key S&P 500 sectors, consumer discretionary and financials advanced, while energy and utilities slid.
Some market experts warned that a correction is on the horizon.
"We're due for some kind of pause to refresh—it's been that case since December," Paul Schatz of Heritage Capital told CNBC. "At some point this quarter, we'll get a 4 to 8 percent cleanseand that will set the stage for a very powerful rally in the late spring."
Schatz added that investors should look at the laggard stocks to rally in the short-term.
The Federal Reserve should seriously consider pulling back on its $600 billion stimulus program given stronger growth and a brighter jobs picture, said Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker at a business gathering at the University of Delaware.
Despite a report last week showing only 36,000 jobs were created in January, Lacker said other measures were pointing to a firmer economic recovery and better employment prospects.
"An array of forward-looking indicators of employment trends point to continued labor market improvement," said Lacker.
Meanwhile, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, last year a vocal critic of the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying program, said on Tuesday he would oppose further Fed easing and would move aggressively to trim the central bank's bond holdings should inflation emerge.
And Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said inflation is still below the central bank's comfort levels and price rises for individual goods or services does not signal broader price pressures are around the corner. Lockhart said the central bank cannot address rises in the cost of living, but needs to ensure prices overall remain stable.
"For the moment, inflation, properly defined, is tame, in my view. And the rise of individual prices does not signal incipient inflation,'' Lockhart told the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce.