NEW YORK — Stocks rose Friday, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index completing the longest weekly rally since April, as better-than-estimated earnings at technology companies overshadowed an unexpected drop in consumer confidence.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent to 1,125.59 and has posted a 1.5 percent gain since Sept. 10, a third straight weekly advance. The Dow Jones industrial average advanced 13.02 points, or 0.1 percent, to 10,607.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose an eighth straight day, gaining 0.5 percent to 2,315.61, its longest winning streak since July 2009.
“It’s encouraging to see tech bellwethers coming out with good earnings,” said William Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management in Philadelphia. “I expect those companies to engage in more buybacks and dividends. That reinforces my view that the market will be higher by year-end.”
The S&P 500 lost 7.5 percent from its 2010 high in April amid mounting evidence of a slowdown in the world’s largest economy. The gauge rose 7.3 percent this month after the drop pushed the index’s valuation to about 12.2 times estimated profits for the next year, near the lowest since March 2009.
Technology companies in the S&P 500 led this week’s advance, climbing 4.4 percent as a group, after a person familiar with the matter said Microsoft may issue debt in order to return more cash to shareholders and Cisco Systems said it will begin paying a dividend.
Oracle, the second-largest software-maker, jumped 8.4 percent to $27.48. Excluding acquisition costs and other expenses, earnings climbed to 42 cents a share last quarter, beating the 37-cent average of projections compiled by Bloomberg.
Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, rose 0.5 percent to $46.72, and earlier climbed as much as 4.8 percent. Revenue this quarter will be as much as $5.55 billion and earnings per share will be as much as $1.70, beating estimates, RIM said in a statement Thursday.
