YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Today's session was an extension of Thursday's rally initiated by Mario Draghi's comments aimed at restoring investor confidence in the euro zone. The 1.9% advance in the S&P 500 turned the index positive on the week.

Advanced GDP for the second quarter suggested the economy grew at a 1.5% rate when an increase of 1.2% had been expected. The first quarter chain deflator reportedly increased by 1.6%, which is what had been anticipated. Equities surged to highs this afternoon on reports that cited the ECB’s Draghi as saying he is considering bond buys, a rate cut, and a new LTRO program.

Financial stocks contributed to the broad market rally with Citigroup (C 27.30, +1.02) and Goldman Sachs (GS 101.64, +3.58) advancing by 3.9% and 3.7% respectively. Health care was one of the top sectors today with Gilead Sciences (GILD 55.50, +3.82) outperforming the rest of the pack. The company beat on both earnings and revenues while indicating progress in developing an improved hepatitis C treatment.

Expedia (EXPE 55.21, +9.50) was the top S&P 500 performer, up nearly 21% after earnings and revenue surprised to the upside.

Starbucks (SBUX 47.42, -4.98) and Amazon (AMZN 237.32, +17.31) both reported disappointing earnings. Despite negative results from the two, their stocks saw drastically different market reaction. Down 9.5%, Starbucks was the main S&P 500 laggard on the day. Amazon however, was one of the session leaders, up 7.9%.

European markets ended Friday on a positive note with Spain's IBEX gaining 3.9% and Italy's MIB posting a 2.9% advance. Afternoon buying pushed France's CAC to a 2.3% gain.

The yield on Spain's 10-yr government debt ended the week at 6.74% after declining by 18 basis points.

Lifted by Mario Draghi's comments, the euro posted an advance on the week, settling around 1.2300.

A busy week of earnings and European volatility.

Looking back on the week, Monday started with reports suggesting Greece may see its aid cut off if the country fails to meet its commitments. Both Italy and Spain announced short-selling bans which had their U.S. listings under pressure. Traders continued to watch peripheral yields as both the Italian and Spanish 10-yr yields were up close to 20 basis points at their respective 6.31% and 7.40%., during the day. In corporate news, McDonald's (MCD 89.18, +0.18) missed expectations as headwinds from overseas and rising costs of food products weighed on results. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% on Monday. After the bell, Moody's placed the ‘AAA' ratings of Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands on ‘negative watch.'

Tuesday saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq decline at nearly 1% each. The day's action was driven by slim earnings outperformance coupled with lowered full year guidance from multiple firms. China's HSBC Flash Manufacturing PMI rose to 49.5 (48.2 previous), but the reading still pointed to a contraction in the manufacturing sector of the world's second largest economy. After the bell, tech giant Apple (AAPL 585.16, +10.28) missed earnings and revenue estimates, and also slashed their guidance for the upcoming quarter. Apple fell over 4% the following day.

Wednesday began with mixed earnings and a new home sales reading that missed expectations. Egan Jones issued a downgrade of Italy's sovereign rating to CCC+ from B+. Earnings season continued as Zynga (ZNGA 3.09, -0.09) was one of the weakest performers following a second quarter loss and slowing revenue growth. Its shares fell almost 40%. The S&P 500 was near the unchanged mark on the day.

Thursday morning saw a sharp increase in futures at around 7:00 AM ET following comments from Mario Draghi. Mr. Draghi is being quoted as saying "sharing national sovereignty on EU level to come" and that the European Central Bank is "ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro." The S&P 500 soared nearly 2% on these comments. At day's end, the much anticipated earnings from Facebook (FB 23.70, -3.14) crossed the wires. The company reported earnings that were mostly in line, but the stock fell nearly 10% in the after-hours session as the company failed to give any guidance on the conference call.

Earnings season in full-swing; bottom-line beats remain prevalent while top-line performance weakens.

The second heavy week of second quarter earnings season has established a trend which started appearing last week. Nearly 300 companies in the S&P 500 have reported second quarter results thus far. Roughly two thirds of them have beat earnings estimates; this is down modestly over last quarter.

However, the Street is more focused on the fact that nearly 60% of the firms have missed top line expectations. That figure was below 30% at this juncture during the first quarter earnings season.

Crude oil rose for a fourth consecutive session as it followed gains in the broader markets. It dipped into negative territory to its pit session low of $89.29 per barrel in morning action but quickly recovered. The energy component popped to a session high of $90.53 per barrel in afternoon action and settled with a 0.8% gain at $90.15 per barrel. Despite the recent strength, crude settled the week 0.9% lower.

Natural gas spent its entire pit session in the red. It slid below the $3.00 per MMBtu level in afternoon action, but a rally heading into the close cut some of its losses. Natural gas settled at $3.03 per MMBtu for a weekly loss of 1.6% despite yesterday's better-than-expected inventory data.

Gold and silver slid off their respective session highs of $1628.60 per ounce and $27.85 per ounce set moments after pit trade opened in response to a rally in the dollar following GDP data. The metals reacted again to numerous European headlines regarding Greek debt and efforts to safeguard the euro.

Despite a volatile day, both metals closed their sessions modestly higher. Gold booked a 2.2% weekly gain as it closed at $1618.30 per ounce, while silver settled at $27.50 per ounce, or 0.7% higher than last week's closing price.

Next week, over 800 companies are expected to report quarterly earnings. This includes more than 100 from the S&P 500. A majority of the largest firms have already reported their quarterly results. As such, the statistics regarding earnings surprises tend to trail lower as the reporting season progresses.DJ30 +187.73 NASDAQ +64.84 SP500 +25.95 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1921/2.04 bln/566 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2568/913.1 mln/492