Investing.com - Wall Street surged on Friday as reasonably positive bank earnings and an appetite for beaten-down shares spurred buying after a four-day equity selloff.
The S&P 500 rose 35 points, or 1.31%, to 2,764.14 as of 9:44 AM ET (13:44 GMT), while the Dow increased 307 points, or 1.23%, to 25,360.33 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 143 points, or 1.96%, to 7,472.81.
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) each posted fairly solid results, which was enough to boost stock prices. JPMorgan was up 0.85%, while Citigroup gained 3.26% and Wells Fargo rose 1.65%.
Technology stocks were also up, with Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) up 2.45% after Macquarie upgraded shares to outperform from neutral with a $121 price target, Benzinga reported. Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) gained 4.94%, while Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose 4.11% and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 3.22%.
Elsewhere General Electric (NYSE:GE) fell 0.94%, while Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX) dipped 1.84$.
In Europe stocks were mostly up. Germany’s DAX rose 67 points, or 0.59%, while in France the CAC 40 increased 29 points, or 0.58%, and in London the FTSE 100 was up 32 points, or 0.47%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 gained 9 points, or 0.28%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 dipped 34 points, or 0.38%.
In commodities, gold futures inched down 0.15% to $1,225.80 a troy ounce while crude oil futures rose 0.86% to $71.58 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, increased 0.36% to 94.94.