Upbeat comments from a Cisco executive and solid earnings reports from Merck
and GE
boosted stocks on Friday and helped overcome early selling on a mixed wholesale inflation report.
Cisco shares gained nearly 3% after Chief Development Officer Charles Giancarlo was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that sales are at the high end of forecasts. Cisco will report full results next month.
Infosys gained 2.7% on its results, and Rural Cellular
soared 35% on its earnings report.
Apple , meanwhile, fell 2% after delaying its next operating system upgrade.
Medis jumped 10% on a deal with Microsoft
.
Keithley , Semitool
, Planar
and SumTotal
slumped on their outlooks.
The Nasdaq rose 11 to 2491, the S&P 500 climbed 5 to 1453, and the Dow rose 59 to 12,612. Volume declined to 2.59 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.98 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancing issues led by a 19-12 margin on the NYSE, and 19-11 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 65% on the NYSE, and 67% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 241-16 on the NYSE, and 170-40 on the Nasdaq.
