Wall Street on Track for Positive Week

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- U.S. stocks finished Friday with polite gains as investors looked past a tepid report on economic growth in the first quarter and concentrated on what's shaping up to be a decent first-quarter earnings season.

Amazon(AMZN) was the big winner on Friday, surging nearly 16% after its blowout quarter. More than half of the components of the S&P 500 have reported their numbers now with nearly 73% of companies exceeding Wall Street's consensus view, according to Thomson Reuters.

The year-over-year profit growth rate is running above 7%, better than the flat performance that analysts were expecting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 24 points, or 0.2%, to close at 13,228. The blue chip index ran as high as 13,267. The S&P 500 was rising more than 3 points, or 0.2%, to settle at 1403.

The Dow, which is now up in four straight sessions, added 1.5% for the week, while the S&P 500 gained 1.8%.

The Nasdaq outperfomed its counterparts with an advance of nearly 19 points, or 0.6%, at 3069. The index, which has benefited from Apple's(AAPL) massive post-earnings rally, jumped 2.3% for the week with Apple rising 5.2%.

Breadth within the Dow was positive with 19 of the 30 components moving higher. The biggest percentage gainers among the blue chips were Cisco(CSCO) , Coca-Cola(KO) , Kraft Foods(KFT) and McDonald's(MCD) , all rising more than 1%.

In the broad market, advancers outnumbered losers by a 2-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange and 1.5-to-1 on the Nasdaq.

Alan Zafran, partner at Luminous Capital, was chalking up Friday's buying to a favorable technical environment. The 1400 level is viewed as key for the S&P 500, and a convincing break above it could lead to the market back toward recent highs.