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By Alex Eule |  Tuesday, October 19 Earn, Baby, Earn. Stocks had another big day, with the S&P 500 up 0.7%. The large-cap index is now within spitting distance (0.4%) of an all-time high. So much for the uncertainty around inflation, the taper, government shutdowns, and debt defaults.  Those issues aren't gone, but earnings have overshadowed them all. Thus far, 53 companies in the S&P 500 have reported third-quarter earnings; 83% of them have bested Wall Street estimates. (Today's big beat came from Johnson & Johnson.) Analysts now sees third-quarter earnings rising 32.4%, according to Refinitiv. At the beginning of the year, analysts were looking for 14% growth from this quarter.  A doubling of earnings growth is a surefire ingredient for stock gains. Optimism about the third-quarter, along with strong first- and second-quarter earnings seasons is why the S&P 500 is up 20% year to date. The good news around earnings has helped resuscitate a risk-on attitude among investors. Bitcoin is up 4% in the last 24 hours, to a recent $64,425. The cryptocurrency has doubled since July and is closing in on its own all-time high of $64,863. Bitcoin's latest rally came on the first day of trading for a new exchange traded fund created in its honor. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF ended the day up 4.9%. Some 24 million shares of the new ETF -- which tracks Bitcoin futures rather than holding actual crypto assets -- traded hands Tuesday. ProShares CEO Michael Sapir was surely thrilled with the debut. "There are many advantages that flow from the fact that we’re using Bitcoin futures to get exposure to Bitcoin," he told Avi Salzman today. "...there’s a fairly uniform belief among people who have looked at the futures market and the spot market that the futures market is the best price-discovery venue out there for Bitcoin right now." Time will tell if Sapir is right. For now, investors are are in a betting mood. The best-performing stock in the S&P 500 today was Penn National Gaming -- the owner of more than 40 casinos and racetracks across the U.S.

 

DJIA:  +0.56% to 35,457.31 S&P 500: +0.74% to 4,519.63 Nasdaq: +0.71% to 15,129.09 The Hot Stock: Penn National Gaming +5.2% The Biggest Loser: Ulta Beauty -10.6% Best Sector: Healthcare +1.3% Worst Sector: Consumer Discretionary -0.3%