NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
U.S. stocks surged Friday as investors reacted to bullish earnings and forecasts from Juniper Networks and other technology issues. The major indexes also closed higher for the week.
The Nasdaq composite (up 31.38 to 2140.46, Charts) gained 1.5 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 (up 7.78 to 1139.83, Charts) index gained 0.7 percent and the Dow Jones industrial average (up 46.66 to 10600.51, Charts) gained 0.4 percent.
For the week, the Dow gained 1.3 percent, while the S&P 500 gained 1.6 percent; both indexes recorded their 8th consecutive week of gains. The Nasdaq advanced 2.5 percent this week, its seventh up week out of eight.
"There are good trends everywhere," said Tim Heekin, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Thomas Weisel Partners. "Some people are looking for a 5 percent to 10 percent correction, partly because they think it's healthy and partly because they want a pullback so they can jump back in. But the path of least resistance remains up."
All U.S. financial markets will be closed Monday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Tuesday brings earnings from Dow components 3M (MMM: up $1.18 to $85.48, Research, Estimates), Citigroup (C: unchanged at $49.50, Research, Estimates), General Motors (GM: up $0.07 to $54.07, Research, Estimates), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ: down $1.39 to $50.45, Research, Estimates) and United Technologies (UTX: up $2.10 to $97.50, Research, Estimates) before the bell.
Next week is light on economic news, with nothing due until Wednesday, when housing starts and building permits numbers are released.
Although investors seemed to reward the stocks of companies that reported solid earnings Friday, the gains were limited, perhaps due to a certain complacency about strong earnings in the fourth quarter, something the market has been betting on.
On Thursday, stocks fell, with investors seeing a series of strong earnings reports from the technology sector as being not strong enough.
Yet, the tone overall remained positive, bolstered by solid earnings and forecasts from Juniper Networks and General Electric.
Juniper leads the pack
In the day's upbeat earnings news, after the close Thursday, Juniper Networks (JNPR: up $7.00 to $29.93, Research, Estimates) said it earned 7 cents per share, 2 cents more than analysts surveyed by Reuters expected and up from a year earlier. The stock soared more than 30 percent. Its gains spilled over to others in the telecom networking sector: JDS Uniphase (JDSU: up $0.70 to $5.17, Research, Estimates) added nearly 16 percent and topped the Nasdaq's most-actives list, Ciena (CIEN: up $1.26 to $7.97, Research, Estimates) rose 18 percent and Cisco Systems (CSCO: up $1.97 to $29.13, Research, Estimates) added more than 7 percent.
General Electric (GE: up $1.35 to $33.35, Research, Estimates) reported a 47-percent gain in its fourth-quarter earnings pushing the stock up more than 4 percent.
However, the Dow struggled to match the Nasdaq's gains after a pair of its components were downgraded.
UBS cut its rating on Altria (MO: Research, Estimates) to 'reduce' from 'neutral', sending its shares down more than 1 percent. Morgan Stanley downgraded Johnson & Johnson (JNJ: down $1.39 to $50.45, Research, Estimates) to 'under weight' from 'equal weight', sending its shares down 2.7 percent.
The day's most important economic report, the preliminary reading of the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for January, jumped to a surprisingly high 103.2 versus expectations for a rise to 94.0. In December, the sentiment index came in at 92.6.
Market breadth remained positive and volume was robust, with gainers beating losers nine to seven on the New York Stock Exchange, where 1.71 billion shares traded, and by three to two on the Nasdaq, where 2.58 billion shares changed hands.
Treasury prices fell. The 10-year note's yield rose to 4.03 percent from 3.97 percent late Thursday as its price slipped. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. The dollar recovered modestly versus the euro, but weakened versus the yen.
NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures gained $1.47 to settle at $34 a barrel. COMEX gold fell 90 cents to settle at $407 an ounce.
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