US STOCKS-Wall St scores best week in 4 months with IBM's help

Stocks lacked direction on Friday, closing barely higher for the day, as traders digested mixed earnings reports from five corporate giants including positive results from IBM and disappointing earnings from the likes of General Electric.
However, stocks capped off a strong week for Wall Street, with the Dow rising for five straight days to add more than 7.3% this week. It's the best week for the Dow point-wise for the year.

For the week, the Dow gained 7.33% - the first weekly gain in four weeks.

Traders got a heavy dose of earnings results between Thursday's close and Friday's opening. IBM, now one of the largest components of the 30-member index, gave a big boost to the Dow after firm reported a $2.32-a-share profit well above analysts’ estimates. Shares of IBM closed up 4.25%, offsetting the retreat in GE's shares.

“We got Big Blue’s results and they really did a great job with the numbers,” said Ted Weisberg with Seaport Securities. “There’s been a lot of good news on the earnings front. Let’s just hope we get beyond today and keep up this momentum.”

Shares of GE fell 6% after the industrial giant reported a 47% drop in quarterly profit from a year ago primarily on woes within the GE Capital financial unit, which reported a 80% drop in quarterly profit from a year ago. The maker of jet engines to television programming reported a $2.67 billion profit, or 24 cents a share, down from 51 cents a share a year ago. The earnings were slightly better than the 23 cents expected by analysts.

Traders also cheered a report from the U.S. Commerce Department that said construction of new homes and apartments jumped 3.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 582,000 units, better than the 530,000 unit pace economists expected.

In the commodity markets, oil jumped 2.5% to $63.56 a barrel while gold futures rose $2.40 to $937.80 a troy ounce. Shares of the energy companies ExxonMobil and Chevron were mostly despite the news.
Today’s Markets
At the 4 p.m. market close on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 32.12 points, or 0.37%, to 8743.94, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.36 points, or 0.04%, to 940.38 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.58 points, or 0.08%, to 1886.61.

For the week:
The Dow is up 597.42, or 7.3 percent.
The S&P is up 61.25, or 7 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 130.58, or 7.4 percent.
For the year:
The Dow is down 32.45, or 0.4 percent.
The S&P is up 37.13, or 4.1 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 309.58, or 19.6 percent.

Global Markets
In London, the FTSE 100 closed up 0.62% to 4388.75 while Paris' CAC 40 index gained 0.59% to 3218.46 and Germany's DAX gained 0.43% to 4978.40.
In Asia overnight, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.55% to 9395.32 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 2.42% to 18805.66 and China's Shanghai Composite rose 0.19% to 3189.74.