Wall Street has best week in six months

The New York equities markets were up on Friday and on track to have their best week in over six months. At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.1 percent to 11,219.32, an advance of 3.2 percent during the week. The Nasdaq Composite had gained 1.3 percent to 2,081.67, gaining 3 percent on the week. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was also up 1.1 percent on the day so far to 1,276.48, up 2.9 percent over the week.

Automakers had a good week. General Motors was up 11.4 percent in the course of the week to $32.29 even though its quarterly report showed a loss of $3.2 billion in consequence of the company’s employee buy-out plan. Without that expense, the car company’s operating profit was $1.2 billion in the quarter, better than had been expected. The news helped Ford, which saw an 8.4 percent gain on the week to $6.81.

In the telecommunications sector, AT&T added 10.4 percent to end the week at $30.19 after its second quarter report showed that earnings had rise by 81 percent, largely due to Cingular Wireless.

Oil and oil services companies also saw gains on the week. ExxonMobil was up 4.7 percent to $66.91 after it said that its quarterly profits was over $10 billion, up 36 percent. BJ Services, meanwhile, gained 15.2 percent this week to $34.62 on profits that were up by 86 percent in their third quarter.

There were losers on the week. Corning dropped 12.6 percent to $19.41on a warning that sales in the third quarter are not likely to rise to analysts forecasts. The problem is an increase in inventories of its liquid crystal display glass. Elsewhere, Amazon fell 19.4 percent during the week, bringing its decline since the first of the year to 43 percent. The internet retailer closed out the week at $26.75.

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