See allLatest Trade Alerts

Brokerage Partners

Stocks Continue to Climb as Companies Exceed Expectations

Written by: Andrea Tse 01/25/13 - 4:51 PM EST
Tickers in this article: CSCO ETFC HAL KLAC MSFT PG SBUX SCSS T THLD TPX ^DJI ^GSPC ^IXIC

AT&T posted a narrower loss in the fourth quarter as Apple's iPhone helped generate record smartphone sales. Shares added 0.8%.

Cisco reached an agreement to sell its home-networking business unit, including the Linksys router brand, to privately held Belkin, a maker of smartphone cases and computing accessories. A purchase price for the deal, expected to close in March, wasn't disclosed. Cisco shares were up 0.6%.

3M, Home Depot, P&G as well as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and United Technologies (UTX) all reached multi-year highs Friday.

More Headlines

Caterpillar (CAT) , UnitedHealth (UNH) , Boeing (BA) and Wal-Mart (WMT) traded lower.

Boeing shares were down 0.4% as safety investigations into the company's Dreamliner continue.

The S&P 500 was up 8 points, or 0.5%, to 1,503. The index ended up 1.1% for the four-day trading week. The Nasdaq was up 19 points, or 0.6%, to 3,150. The tech-heavy index added 0.5% on the week.

Most sectors were trading higher in the broader market. Top gainers included conglomerates, consumer cyclicals and non-cyclicals. Technology shares were also edging higher. The basic materials was the lone sector in the red.

Earlier on Friday, the S&P 500 once again crossed the 1,500 level. On Thursday, the S&P 500 managed to breach that mark a number of times during the day. Doreen Mogavero, founder of Mogavero Lee & Co., said "1,500 was the target and traders wanted to see if we could get there this year and we'd gotten there earlier in the year. I don't think you can question the momentum of this market."

Mogavero said there have been two camps, both polarized, on theories of where the market is headed from current levels. Some traders have been feeling that the market is poised to really take off for a "huge new secular bull market" and others say a pullback is due.

December new-home sales figures were the only U.S. data released Friday. The Census Bureau said new-home sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000 in December from an upwardly revised 398,000 in November. Economists, on average, were expecting December new-home sales of 385,000.