NEW YORK — Stocks advanced slightly Friday as investors cheered the quarterly results of three large technology companies: Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
The modest gains helped close a relatively strong week for U.S. stocks, with the three major indexes rising between 1.4 and 3.2 percent in five days. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite closed at record highs.
Investors now prepare for the biggest week of earnings season. Next week, more than 150 companies in the S&P 500 will report their results, including such market-moving names as Apple, Ford, Visa, Pfizer and Exxon Mobil.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 21.45 points, or 0.1 percent, to 18,080.14. The S&P 500 rose 4.76 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,117.69, and the Nasdaq rose 36.02 points, or 0.7 percent, to 5,092.08.
A day earlier, the Nasdaq closed at 5,056.06, eclipsing its record of 5,048.62, set on March 10, 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom.
Microsoft, Amazon and Google all rose sharply after the releasing their quarterly results, which helped lift the Nasdaq more than the Dow or S&P 500. A common theme was signs that the companies were growing sales outside of their bread-and-butter businesses.
Investors have been looking for Google, Microsoft and Amazon to show some sort of progress outside their traditional businesses. Microsoft cannot solely rely on computer sales to drive its profits, Amazon has very low profit margins on the products it sells, and Google is heavily exposed to desktop computer advertising while the world is shifting to mobile.
“I think we are starting to see actual evidence that their strategies are working, especially at Microsoft and Amazon,” said Dan Morgan, a portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company, who owns shares of all three companies.
Next week could be a make-or-break period for investors. So far, first-quarter earnings have come in softer than what investors had anticipated, which has caused analysts to write down their forecasts.
