Stock rally — spurred by corporate earnings — tops off strong week

NEW YORK — Wall Street topped off a strong week with a big rally today, after results from companies like Citigroup and Google helped ease investor anxiety about the health of corporate profits. The major stock indexes at times rose more than 2 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 228.87, or 1.8 percent, to 12,849.36.

Microsoft, one of the 30 Dow stocks, advanced 78 cents to close at $30 a share. Boeing, also a Dow stock, gained $1.75 to $78.66.

Broader stock indicators also showed sizable advances. The Standard & Poor's 500 index increased 24.77, or 1.8 percent, to 1,390.33, and the Nasdaq composite rose 61.14, or 2.6 percent, to 2,402.97.

Investors have been worried that recent data indicate a slowing economy, which would cut into profit growth at some of the nation's biggest companies. But results so far have shown that earnings, for the most part, are meeting or beating expectations, and the major indexes all posted gains of more than 4 percent for the week.

Citigroup, the nation's biggest bank, encouraged investors after posting results that didn't contain any big surprises. The New York-based bank reported a loss of $5.1 billion during the first quarter because of poor bets on mortgages and leveraged loans. The loss was half the $10 billion recorded for the preceding quarter.

Google helped boost investor sentiment, as well as the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index, by reporting first-quarter earnings and revenue growth that handily topped analysts' predictions. There had been some speculation on Wall Street that the search engine would turn in sluggish results because of slower online advertising revenue.

"This is the first week of earnings reports, and the marquee companies in general have been able to report good earnings, and the banks have been able to raise capital, and the market is responding to that," said Subodh Kumar, global investment strategist at Subodh Kumar & Associates in Toronto.