NEW YORK - Wall Street stocks crept higher Tuesday as investors looked for signs of recovery from recession amid a flurry of economic reports in the final market session of the second quarter.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 12.39 points (0.15 percent) to 8,541.77 in opening trades.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 8.02 points (0.43 percent) to 1,852.08 and the broad-market Standard & Poor's 500 advanced a bare 0.64 point (0.07 percent) to 927.87.

"Traders continue to look for signs that would point to continued prosperity in the equity markets since rallying from the March lows," Charles Schwab & Co. analysts said in a client note.

After two straight weeks of decline, the market rebounded Monday on hopes that key economic data this week would signal a recovery was taking shape. The Dow climbed 1.08 percent, the Nasdaq gained 0.32 percent and the S&P 500 added 0.91 percent.

"The talk today, however, isn't so much about what the market did yesterday as it is about what the market did during the second quarter. That's because this is the final day of the quarter and the S&P, up 16.2 percent, is on track to register its best quarterly performance since 1998," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

O'Hare underscored, however, that even with the market's rally from early March lows, the S&P is still down 41 percent from the peak in October 2007.

"Yes, things are better, but there is still a long way to go to reclaim all that has been lost," he said. Investors faced a raft of data Tuesday in the holiday-shortened week, with the market closed Friday for the July 4 Independence Day celebration.

Expected to draw particular attention was the consumer confidence index reading for June later Tuesday. The Conference Board's index for May had leapt to an eight-month high, stoking hopes that recession-weary consumers may be ready to boost the spending that accounts for two-thirds of US economic activity.