NEW YORK — Strong earnings from a pair of technology giants helped the stock market recover some of its losses Friday, a positive end to Wall Street’s worst week in five months.
Microsoft and Google both beat earnings expectations, yields of government bonds ticked up and copper — a key industrial metal — continued its fall, losing 2 percent.
Microsoft gained 3 percent to $29.77, leading the Dow Jones industrial average higher. The software giant reported earnings late Thursday that beat analysts’ forecasts and showed solid results from its Office, software tools and Xbox divisions.
Google’s stock climbed 3 percent to $799.87. The leader in Internet search boosted prices for ads distributed to smartphones and tablet computers.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 13.64 points to 1,555.25, an increase of 0.9 percent. The Dow rose 10.37 points to 14,547.51, a gain of 0.1 percent. The Dow spent most of the day down, pulled lower by disappointing results from IBM.
Traders, like everyone else, were following the news out of Boston, where police were hunting for one of two brothers suspected to be behind Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings. One brother was killed in a gun battle with police overnight. But the news had no impact on markets, traders said.
Friday’s slight gains couldn’t overcome a tough week for the market, when both the S&P 500 and the Dow lost 2.1 percent. That’s their biggest weekly drop since last November.
“Compared to the rest of the week, it looks like we’re going to slide into the weekend on a quiet note,” said Jim Baird, Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Plante Moran Financial Advisors
Most big corporations have managed to beat analysts’ low expectations for first-quarter profits. Of the 104 companies that turned in results through Friday morning, 70 have trumped forecasts, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Next week marks another big week for earnings as 10 members of the Dow and 181 companies in the S&P 500 report results.
The Nasdaq composite index gained 39.69 points to 3,206.06, up 1.3 percent.
