Investors weren’t given much macro data to chew on Friday, though they still had plenty of positive points throughout the past week to digest.
However, a slew of promising first-quarter earnings reports helped give the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other indexes a gentle nudge higher to finish the week.
Morgan Stanley (MS, -2.8%) more than doubled its year-ago Q1 earnings and posted an adjusted profit of $2.20 per share that easily bested analyst expectations. Shares declined, but that can be at least partly chalked up to the revelation that it suffered $911 million in losses connected to the collapse of capital management firm Archegos Capital.
PNC Financial Services (PNC, +2.3%) and Ally Financial (ALLY, +0.2%) also reported Street-beating results.
The Dow finished 0.5% higher to 34,200 to secure yet another all-time high, as did the S&P 500, which closed up 0.4% to 4,185. Tech, seemingly taking its cue again from improving interest rates, helped restrain the Nasdaq Composite (+0.1% to 14,052) to a modest gain.
