YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks finished this holiday-shortened week on a high note, thanks largely to another big batch of better-than-expected earnings. Broad buying during the past two sessions gave the Dow and S&P 500 weekly gains of little more than 1%, but the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2% this week.

The Nasdaq outperformed its counterparts during the past couple of sessions with help from large-cap tech issues. Intel (INTC 21.46, +0.05) was a leader among tech issues in the prior session, but today Apple (AAPL 350.70, +8.29) and Qualcomm (QCOM 56.94, +1.67) were primary benefactors of the tech sector's bounce. As a group, tech stocks scored a 1.0% gain.

Materials stocks lack the collective weight of tech issues, but their 1.1% gain didn't go unnoticed. DuPont (DD 55.91, +0.54) was a strong performer following its upside earnings surprise. Better-than-expected results also helped Newmont Mining (NEM 59.23, +0.38) settle higher, although the stock surrendered some of its gains.

Financials put together their best gain of the week by advancing 0.6%. Dow component Travelers (TRV 61.32, +2.19) was a leader as its shares climbed to a record year high with help from strong quarterly results. Consumer finance play Capital One (COF 53.26, +2.73) also surged, but peer American Express (AXP 47.11, +0.11) put together only a modest gain amid a positive earnings surprise. Morgan Stanley (MS 26.48, +0.44) also had a stronger-than-expected quarter, but the stock forfeited some of its gains.

Blue chips General Electric (GE 19.95, -0.45), Verizon (VZ 36.91, -0.88), and McDonalds (MCD 76.91, -1.49) both had better-than-expected bottom lines, but neither scored a gain. GE actually augmented its report with a dividend hike.

Pfizer (PFE 19.79, -0.60) fell sharply after reports indicated that deaths were reported in relation to one of the company's drug tests. Amgen (AMGN 53.69, -2.49) was also a source of weakness following its latest quarterly report, but an upside earnings surprise from UnitedHealth (UNH 47.81, +3.57) offered some support to the overall health care sector, which settled with a tame gain of 0.3%.

Data, although generally disappointing, did little to disrupt today's broad market advance. Initial jobless claims for the week ended April 16 totaled 403,000, which is greater than the 390,000 claims that had been expected, on average, among economists polled by Briefing.com. Week over week, initial claims came down by 13,000. As for continuing claims, they fell 7,000 week over week to 3.70 million.

The latest Philadelphia Fed Index for April dove sharply to 18.5 from 43.4 in the prior month. It had been expected to come in at 33.0.

Leading Indicators for March increased 0.4%. That is down from the 0.8% increase in the prior month, but greater than the 0.2% increase that had been widely expected.

Weakness in the dollar once again helped select commodities move higher today. June gold rallied for 0.3% to close at $1504.00 per ounce, while May silver surged 3.8% to settle at $46.13 per ounce. Once again, the metals rallied to fresh all-time and 31 yr highs, respectively. In overnight trade, gold traded to $1509.60, while silver traded to $46.40 per ounce in pit trade.

May natural gas rallied on the back of this morning's inventory data to close higher by 2.4% to $4.41 per MMBtu. A smaller-than-expected build helped natural gas traded to its best since April 1. June crude oil finished up 0.8% to $112.29 per barrel. On the week, crude gained 2.4%. Today's rally was underpinned by weakness in the dollar as well.

As a reminder, the observance of Good Friday will keep U.S. markets closed tomorrow.

Advancing Sectors: Materials (+1.1%), Tech (+1.0%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.6%), Financials (+0.6%), Energy (+0.6%), Health Care (+0.3%), Telecom (+0.3%), Utilities (+0.2%), Industrials (+0.2%)
Unchanged: Consumer Staples
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +52.45 NASDAQ +17.65 NQ100 +0.8% R2K +0.7% SP400 +0.6% SP500 +7.02 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1532/1.87 bln/1040 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1960/811 mln/1022