US STOCKS-Wall St ends week positively; S&P 500, Dow hit record highs

(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window.)
* S&P 500, Dow post fourth straight week of gains
* Morgan Stanley wraps up earnings from big banks
* Strong U.S. data boosts economic recovery hopes
* Indexes up: Dow 0.48%, S&P 500 0.36%, Nasdaq 0.10%

(Adds closing prices)
By David French and Shivani Kumaresan
April 16 (Reuters) - The three main Wall Street indexes
ended Friday higher for the day and week, with the S&P 500
.SPX and the Dow .DJI breaking closing records, as investors
took strong economic data and bank earnings as signs of momentum
in the U.S. pandemic recovery.
Nine of the 11 S&P sub-sectors rose on Friday. The energy
.SPNY and information technology .SPLRCT indexes were the
exceptions. The former, dipping 0.9%, was weighed by lower oil
prices, while the latter was marginally lower, the day after its
highest-ever close.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Industrials recorded their fourth
straight week of gains. The S&P 500 scored three closing highs
this week, while the Dow surpassed its best finish two days
running.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC finished less than one
percent below its own all-time closing high achieved on Feb. 12.
Investor confidence on the road ahead seems steady, with the
volatility index .VIX , Wall Street's fear gauge, falling 1.9%
to its lowest close in 14 months.
"Everyone is looking at just how far we can run before we
start raising interest rates," said George Catrambone, head of
Americas trading at DWS Group.
"Until we see that significant inflation growth and the Fed
starts to talk about raising interest rates, I think it's going
to be goldilocks conditions."
Reporting a 150% jump in quarterly profit on Friday, Morgan
Stanley MS.N joined other big U.S. banks in posting
first-quarter numbers reinforcing hopes of a swift economic
recovery.
Still, the investment bank's shares fell 2.8% as it also
disclosed an almost $1 billion loss from the collapse of private
fund Archegos. Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM.N , Goldman Sachs Group
GS.N , Bank of America Corp BAC.N and Wells Fargo & Co
WFC.N rose between 0.7% and 3.8%. The S&P financials index
.SPSY climbed to a second consecutive record finish.
"When this is all put in context, and compared with other
sectors including technology, we're going to see the financials'
results look very powerful," said Diane Jaffee, senior portfolio
manager at TCW.
"Given what we know about the Fed's loosening on caps for
dividend increases and buybacks after the next CCAR results in
June, I think we'll have a very strong half-year - at least -
for financials."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 164.68 points,
or 0.48%, to 34,200.67; the S&P 500 .SPX gained 15.05 points,
or 0.36%, at 4,185.47; and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
13.58 points, or 0.1%, at 14,052.34.
For the week, the S&P rose 1.4%, the Dow added 1.2% and the
Nasdaq gained 1.1%.
The Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates low
despite higher inflation has also revived demand for richly
valued technology stocks, although bond yields edged higher
again on Friday after hitting multi-week lows a day earlier.
Of the tech-related behemoths that helped led Wall Street's
recovery last year from the coronavirus-fueled crash, Apple Inc
AAPL.O slipped 0.3% on Friday, but Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O ,
Tesla Inc TSLA.O and Microsoft Corp MSFT.O all gained
between 0.1% and 0.6%.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.99 billion shares, compared
with the 11.02 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.36-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.20-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 140 new 52-week highs and no new lows;
the Nasdaq Composite recorded 154 new highs and 102 new lows.