Stocks soared Friday as news of the next Treasury secretary leaked out, but Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) was left behind on a disappointing quarterly report.

The major indexes soared more than 5% on reports that President-elect Barack Obama may choose New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary, sending a reassuring message of continuity to financial markets. Geithner has worked closely with Secretary Treasury Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on efforts to stem the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Dell fell 5% after missing sales estimates, a fresh reminder of just how weak the economy is.

AutoDesk (NASDAQ: ADSK), Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) also lagged on their results.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) gained 8% after its BlackBerry Storm got a positive reception.

And Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) was rallying while the rest of the market was still down, soaring 12% on an Oppenheimer upgrade.

HP (NYSE: HPQ), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) were among other names posting strong gains.

The Nasdaq surged 68 to 1364, the S&P gained 47 to 800, and the Dow soared 494 to 8046. Volume rose to 10.52 billion shares on the NYSE, and 3.16 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 23-13 margin on the NYSE, and 17-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 80% on the NYSE, and 80% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 43-1349 on the NYSE, and 4-1226 on the Nasdaq.

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