Investing.com - Stocks opened higher Friday as investors accentuated the positive in corporate earnings from before the bell and from postmarket the day before.
The Dow rose 0.75% at 9:32 AM ET (14:32 GMT), while the broader S&P 500 gained 0.94%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.54%.
In the absence of economic indicators, quarterly results called the tune.
In the tech sector, Western Digital’s encouraging numbers buoyed sentiment more than Dow component Intel’s cautious guidance soured it.
Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) jumped 12% after it said it expects revenue to grow again in the second half of the year.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) shares sank 6% following revenue and guidance after the bell Thursday that fell short of Wall Street estimates. Its big data center customers scaled back purchases at the end of last year, the company said.
Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) also helped the broader market as it beat forecasts on profit, sales and comparable sales. Shares rose 2.9%.
Three-fourths of the 97 S&P 500 companies that have reported fourth-quarter results have surpassed profit estimates, according to Refinitiv data.
But the earnings growth estimates for last quarter have dropped to 14.2% from 20.1% at the start of October, while 2019 profit growth estimates have come down to 5.8%, from 10.2% in the same period.
In Washington, there was some optimism that Democrats and Republicans could still make a deal to end the shutdown following a defeat in the Senate Thursday of two opposing plans to reopen the federal government.
But expect lots of headlines about what the arrest of former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone means for the White House.
According to The Guardian, the indictment against Stone alleges he made repeated attempts to contact WikiLeaks through an intermediary about documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, and passed on information about the documents to Trump’s election campaign team.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.