LOS ANGELES — Major U.S. stock indexes Friday broke out of the trading range where they’ve been stuck for two months, as a surprisingly strong retail sales report and gangbuster earnings from Google Inc. helped fuel a broad rally.
The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite index turned positive for 2011, with both indexes now up 0.6 percent year to date.
The Dow gained 166.36 points, or 1.5 percent, to 11,644.49, its highest closing level since Aug. 3 — when the market was in the midst of a terrifying plunge driven by Europe’s deepening debt crisis and fear of another global recession.
The market’s latest rally has been underpinned by hopes that both of those worries are receding. European stocks have risen for three straight weeks as the continent’s leaders have taken new steps to buttress their financial system. This week, Slovakia became the final country to approve expansion of the eurozone rescue fund for struggling member countries.
Meanwhile, U.S. economic data have mostly pointed to slow growth, but not a new recession. On Friday, the government said retail sales rose 1.1 percent in September, a much better gain than economists had expected.
“You have people saying, ‘It’s not a double dip,’ ” said Phil Roth, veteran technical market analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York.
Internet search giant Google’s earnings report late Thursday also stoked optimism. The company said net profit jumped 26 percent in the third quarter on a 33 percent surge in revenue.
Google shares zoomed $32.69, or 5.9 percent, to $591.68, the highest since Aug. 3. Lifted by Google and a new high in Apple Inc. stock, the tech-dominated Nasdaq index added 1.8 percent to 2,667.85.
For market chart-watchers, the rally was significant because the Dow, the Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor’s 500 all pushed through the tops of their recent trading ranges.
Since the dive in early August, the market has mostly been trading back and forth in a fairly narrow channel. The S&P, for example, has mostly bounced between 1,100 and 1,220, a range of 11 percent, since Aug. 8.
