Stocks rally as 1Q earnings beat expectations

NEW YORK – U.S. stocks rose for the fourth day in a row after Google Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Citigroup Inc. all posted sunnier-than-expected first-quarter reports, Bloomberg News said.
Google posted a quarterly profit of $4.84 per share, Caterpillar posted a profit of $1.45 per share, beating the $1.33 average prediction. Citigroup posted well above analysts’ $4.52 average estimate. a net loss of $1.02 per share, far less than the anticipated $1.66. Honeywell Inc. and Xerox Corp. also posted better-than-expected results. “A lot of people were worried that we’d have a big negative surprise, and when we didn’t … that was a positive surprise,” Edgar Peters, chief investment officer at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, told Bloomberg Television.
Nine of 10 industry groups in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose on the news. By 11:30 a.m., the S&P 500 was up 24.26 points, or 1.8 percent, for the day – and 4.3 percent for the week – at 1,389.82 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 221.95 points, or 1.8 percent, to 12,842.44; the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 9.38, or 2.5 percent, to 2,401.21.
Profits have exceeded analyst expectations at 58 of the 100 companies in the S&P that have released first-quarter results so far, although earnings are running 37 percent below year-ago levels, Bloomberg data show. “The panic is overdone, and before you know it, things are going to be just fine,” said Michael Williams, who helps oversee about $2.8 billion as managing director of Genesis Asset Management in New York. “The world’s ticking along just fine.”