NEW YORK, July 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closing at new all-time highs, boosted by strong earnings reports from a pair of bank giants.
The Dow inched up 3.38 points, or 0.02 percent, to 15,464.30 points. The S&P 500 ticked up 5.17 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1, 680.19 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 21.78 points, or 0. 61 percent, to 3,600.08 points.
The major stock indices logged a three-week winning streak, with the Dow and the S&P 500 notching the second best week in 2013. For the week, the Dow advanced 2.2 percent and S&P 500 rallied 3.0 percent while the Nasdaq was up 3.5 percent.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. bank by assets, reported a net income of 6.5 billion U.S. dollars, or 1.60 dollars per share, for the second quarter of 2013. Its total net revenue jumped 14 percent to 25.2 billion dollars from a year ago. The results beat analysts'estimates of earning 1.44 dollars a share on revenue of 24.97 billion dollars.
Wells Fargo & Co. reported a record net income of 5.5 billion dollars, or 98 cents per diluted common share, for the second quarter of 2013. Its second-quarter revenue was 21.4 billion dollars. Analysts expected the company to earn 93 cents a share on revenue of 21.18 billion dollars.
Investors will turn their focus to the other four U.S. bank giants. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Staley are scheduled to release their earning reports in the coming week.
On the previous trading day, U.S. stocks soared, lifting the Dow and the S&P 500 to all-time closing highs, boosted by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's dovish speech on Wednesday.
Despite the record run, Joseph C. Greco, a managing director- trading & sales at Meridian Equity Partners, believed the stock market would continue to have a tailwind in near term, now that the Fed has recommitted its presence in the bond market.
"It would seem to me that at least for the next month, or two months, before we hear from the Fed in September again, it would seem to the market can continue to drift higher, with the Fed being there," Greco told Xinhua.
On the economic front, U.S. wholesale prices jumped in June on rising gasoline prices. The Producer Price Index for finished goods increased 0.8 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday.
Meanwhile, the core wholesale prices, which exclude volatile food and energy sectors moved up 0.2 percent in June.
Moreover, a joint survey released by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan on Friday showed that U.S. consumer sentiment index in July slightly decreased to 83.9 from 84.1 in the prior month.
"Consumer sentiment is near a six-year high. A small adjustment in July means little. Besides, the stock market has resumed its rally and retail gas prices are even lower recently, which makes an upward revision in the final reading very likely," Mei Li, an economic analyst at FTN Financial, commented in a note on Friday.
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