US stock markets rounded out a week full of gains on Friday as positive first-quarter earnings reports pushed the Dow past 11,200 points and confidence in the economic recovery grew.
Markets shrugged off the previous weeks’ worries about fraud charges against Goldman Sachs, helped out of the rut by a slew of stellar corporate earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 180 points in the week, finishing on Friday at 11,204.28.
The tech-rich NASDAQ also broke through a symbolic barrier, ending the week at 2,530.15. The Standard & Poor’s 500 broke through the 1,200 mark to reach 1,217.28 on Friday.
“The Dow closed on its highs for the year, and finished higher for its eighth consecutive week” analysts at Briefing.com said.
The banking sector fared well, with Citigroup setting the tone on Monday as it announced a return to profit.
The US banking giant posted a profit of US$4.4 billion in the first quarter.
That was swiftly followed by news that Goldman Sachs posted surging first-quarter profits of US$3.46 billion, doubling its profit of one year ago, even as it faced a US government probe into its role in the US financial meltdown.
The good news kept rolling on Wednesday when Morgan Stanley reported a profit of US$1.8 billion, reversing losses of a year ago as it strode further away from the brink.
“Financial markets, in general, had a solid week, as economic reports for March rolled in on the positive side,” Nigel Gault of IHS Global Insight said.
Among the NASDAQ-listed stocks, Apple stole the show, ending the week at US$270 a share, versus US$244 at the beginning of the week.
Apple on Tuesday proclaimed its best non-holiday quarter on record after nearly doubling its profit on “staggering” sales of iPhones and seeing legions converting to Macintosh computers.
Yahoo meanwhile said its quarterly net profit more than doubled that of a year ago and said it expected its share of the Web search market to improve after months of decline.
Yahoo said first-quarter net profit rose to US$310 million from US$118 million in the corresponding quarter a year ago.
The positive earnings were backed by further signs that the economic recovery is gaining traction.
Sales of newly constructed single-family houses in the US shot up by nearly 27 percent in March compared with the previous month, official estimates released on Friday showed.
“The current economic recovery is looking increasingly robust,” Deutsche Bank told clients on Friday.
That bullishness was shared by some senior members of US President Barack Obama’s administration.
Vice President Joe Biden on Friday offered a bullish prediction that the US economy could soon create 250,000 to half a million jobs per month, as the recovery picks up speed.
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