YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The S&P 500 overcame resistance on Friday to score another strong gain, contributing to the broad market's best weekly performance since July 2009.

A positive tone among market participants was perpetuated by more buying in Europe, where the continent's major bourses extended their recent rally. On Friday, Britain's FTSE advanced 1.2%, but gained more than 3% for the week. France's CAC clmbed 1.0% in the week's final session, but 4% over the past five trading days. A 0.9% advance by the Germany's DAX on Friday helped fuel a 5% weekly gain. Such strength reflected improved sentiment in the eurozone, where concerns about fiscal and financial conditions in both the peripheral and core constituents have threatened confidence for months. Those concerns manifested in a downgrade of Spain by analysts at Fitch on Friday.

A commitment early this week by leading eurozone officials to develop a comprehensive plan intended to stabilize precarious conditions and shore up capital at European banks sent a strong signal to global investors. It also got the week started on a strong note -- the stock market rallied more than 3% on Monday for its best single-session percentage gain in almost seven weeks.

Following that heady move, trade became more subdued on Tuesday. Participants kept their focus on Europe as Slovakia moved to vote on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Country officials actually voted down the plan Tuesday night in conjunction with a no confidence vote for Slovakia's prime minister, but there remained a belief that the EFSF will eventually win approval.

Tuesday also ushered in the unofficial start of earnings season when Dow component Alcoa (AA 10.26, +0.16) announced its latest quarterly results after the close. Some regarded the fact that the company came short of the consensus earnings estimate as an ominous sign.

Minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting were released Wednesday, but the release was essentially a non-event since it offered no new insight into the mindset of the monetary policy setting committee.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM 31.89, +0.29) was bid up aggressively ahead of its quarterly announcement on Thursday morning. The diversified financial services giant posted earnings that exceeded what Wall Street had widely expected, but the dubious quality of that beat was a focus of analysts. Concerted selling caused the stock to drop sharply. Given that JPMorgan Chase is widely regarded as the best in its class, many other banks were implicated. The result was a near 5% drop for the KBW Bank Index, which only made a half-hearted attempt to rebound on Friday, when it advanced a relatively tame 0.7%.

Another weekly initial jobless claims count narrowly above 400,000 -- 404,000 to be specific -- had little impact on action during Thursday's trade, but that's mostly because the tally was right in stride with the 406,000 claims that had been widely expected.

A superior report from Google (GOOG 591.68, +32.69) helped close out the week on a strong note. Both the top and bottom line bested what had been expected. That sent the stock to its highest level in more than one month and inspired buying in other large-cap tech issues. Collectively, tech stocks climbed 2.1% on Friday.

Since tech is the largest sector by market weight, its strength helped the S&P 500 stage a late climb that took it past the 1220 line, which had been a point of formidable resistance at the start of the session and earlier in the week.

Energy stocks were the best performers on Friday. Their 3.6% climb was helped along by a 3.2% spike in oil prices to almost $87 per barrel. Oil prices ended the week about 5% above where they began it.

In the backdrop of Friday's action were some encouraging retail sales numbers. Overall retail sales for September increased by 1.1%, while sales less autos increased by 0.6%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected respective increases of 0.6% and 0.3%. Not only did the September numbers exceed expectations, but they also marked the strongest increases since the first quarter.

Commodities closed out the week on a strong note. Specifically, crude oil prices climbed 3.2% to $86.89 per barrel. More impressive is that oil prices settled with a weekly gain of 5.0%. Elsewhere in the energy complex, natural gas prices spiked 4.8% today and 6.0% for the week.

Among precious metals, gold prices settled pit trade at 1683.20 per ounce, which makes for a 0.9% gain this session. It advanced 2.9% for the week, though. Silver prices scored a 1.6% gain by advancing to $32.17 per ounce. The ended the week 3.6% higher than where they started.

Friday's advance marked the fourth gain in five sessions, helping the S&P 500 score a 6% weekly gain. Perhaps more impressive is that the stock market has now advanced in seven of the past nine sessions for a cumulative gain of more than 11%. DJ30 +166.36 NASDAQ +47.61 NQ100 +1.9% R2K +2.0% SP400 +1.9% SP500 +20.92 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1898/1.66 bln/632 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2530/847 mln/493