US stocks end mostly higher after earnings deluge

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NEW YORK — US stocks Thursday finished a holiday-shortened week mostly higher following a plethora of earnings reports that generally met or exceeded expectations.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 16.31 points (0.10 percent) to 16,408.54.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 2.54 (0.14 percent) to 1,864.85, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 9.29 (0.23 percent) to 4,095.52.

Major earnings reports came from a broad of range of companies across finance, consumer goods, industrials and other segments of the economy.

Of the 84 members of the S&P 500 to report so far, 53 have beaten expectations, 22 have missed and nine have met, according to a report by S&P Capital IQ.

“On balance, even though there are some household names that have disappointed, like JPMorgan and IBM, the earnings season has been better than expected,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.

The market got a lift from Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese micro-blogging site which soared 19.1 percent to $20.24 in its first day of trade after its IPO raised less than the company had hoped for.

Among companies to report earnings, Morgan Stanley was a standout, rising 2.9 percent as earnings jumped 56 percent to $1.5 billion and surpassed expectations by a wide margin.

General Electric, a Dow component, also had a good day, adding 1.7 percent on earnings that exceeded analyst forecasts by a penny at 33 cents per share. Strong performance came from some of GE’s most important industrial divisions, including aviation and power and water.

SanDisk, a maker of memory cards and other data storage technology, surged 9.4 percent on earnings that jumped 62 percent to $269 million.

But Google missed analyst forecasts by 13 cents at $6.27 per share. Google, which notched a 32 percent rise in net income to $3.45 billion, fell 3.7 percent.

IBM reported a 21 percent slump in first quarter earnings and said revenues declined for the eighth quarter in a row. Investors punished the Dow component, sending it 3.3 percent lower.

Mattel was another underperformer, reporting a loss of three cents per share when analysts had projected profits of nine cents per share. Sales of the toymaker’s iconic “Barbie” doll sank 14 percent. Shares lost 1.1 percent.

Bond prices sank. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury rose to 2.72 percent from 2.64 percent Wednesday, while the 30-year increased to 3.52 percent from 3.45 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

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