Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Jan. 26.Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Canada's main stock index rose on Friday, led by shares in Bombardier, which closed up 15 per cent after it won an unexpected trade victory against U.S. planemaker Boeing Co.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index unofficially closed up 35.21 points, or 0.22 per cent, at 16,239.22. Nine of the index's 10 main groups ended higher.
The financials group, which accounts for more than one-third of the TSX's weight, was the lone declining group, slipping just over 0.1 per cent as shares of some of the country's major banks declined.
Toronto-Dominion Bank fell 0.5 per cent to $74.05, while Bank of Nova Scotia was down 0.2 per cent at $81.71.
The materials group, which includes precious and base metals miners and fertilizer companies, added 0.6 per cent.
Gold climbed back toward the previous session's 17-month peak as the U.S. dollar index fell.
Yamana Gold Inc. rose nearly 2.3 per cent to $4.51 and Alamos Gold Inc. gained 3 per cent to $7.86.
The energy group added 0.3 per cent as oil prices rose.
Enbridge Inc. lost 1.1 per cent to $47.05, while TransCanada Corp. fell 0.8 per cent to $57.24.
Shares of Canopy Growth Corp rose 10.8 per cent to $35.09. after AltaCorp Capital upgraded the stock to "speculative buy." The overall healthcare group advanced 3.1 per cent.
The latest round of strong earnings reports, including from Intel and AbbVie, along with continued weakness in the dollar lifted each of the major Wall Street indexes to closing records on Friday.
The three main indexes notched their best four-week run since 2016.
Intel's shares surged as high as $50.15, their highest level since October 2000, and closed up 10.55 per cent at $50.08 after results indicated that the chipmaker's shift to higher-margin data-center business was working.
AbbVie's shares jumped 13.77 per cent after the drugmaker significantly boosted its 2018 earnings forecast with help from U.S. tax reform and said it hopes to accelerate dividend growth and share buybacks.
"We continue to see these positive steps in the right direction and definitely earnings are clearly justifying a lot of the recent move that we've had," said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, NC.
Fourth-quarter earnings growth for the S&P 500 is now estimated at 13.2 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters data, up from 12 percent at the start of the year. Of the 133 companies in the index that have reported through Friday, 79.7 per cent have topped expectations.
The earnings enabled investors to shrug off a reading on economic growth that came in below expectations.
Gross domestic product increased at a 2.6-per-cent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said in its advance GDP report, below the 3-per-cent forecast, as the strongest pace of consumer spending in three years resulted in a surge in imports.
"You have manufacturing and the consumer doing well at the same time and the globe is doing better, so that's a path for future GDP gains, which has always provided a fertile backdrop for earnings gains," said Brent Schutte, chief investment strategist at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management in Milwaukee.
Weakness in the dollar, which is supportive for large multinational companies, continued. The greenback was down 0.34 percent against a basket of major currencies.
The dollar was on track for its worst week since May after comments from senior U.S. officials this week backing a weak currency.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 223.92 points, or 0.85 per cent, to 26,616.71, the S&P 500 gained 33.62 points, or 1.18 per cent, to 2,872.87 and the Nasdaq Composite added 94.61 points, or 1.28 per cent, to 7,505.77.
For the week, the Dow rose 2.08 percent, the S&P 500 gained 2.22 per cent and the Nasdaq advanced 2.31 per cent.
Buoyed by AbbVie, the S&P healthcare index gained 2.17 per cent, scored its best day since November 2016 and was the best performer among the 11 major S&P sectors.
Also lifting the index were gains in Pfizer, up 4.78 per cent after a European regulator recommended granting marketing approval to a diabetes drug developed by the company and Merck, up 1.21 percent.
Starbucks dropped 4.23 per cent after it warned 2018 global cafe sales growth would be at the low end of its forecast.
Oil prices settled higher on Friday after hitting three-year highs, with crude also posting a weekly gain as a weaker U.S. dollar underpinned prices.
Brent crude futures settled up 10 cents, or 0.1 per cent, at $70.52 per barrel after hitting a session high of $70.83. On Thursday, the contract climbed to as high as $71.28, its highest since 2014.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures closed at $66.14 a barrel, up 63 cents, or nearly 1 per cent. On Thursday, they also reached their highest since December 2014, at $66.66.
Brent posted a nearly 2.7-per-cent weekly gain, while WTI reached a weekly gain of 4.3 per cent.