NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks posted gains for the past week as investors digested third quarter earnings reports and the country's major economic data.
For the week, the blue-chip Dow rose 0.4 percent, and the broader S&P 500 gained 0.2 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 0.2 percent.
On the earnings front, Bank of America reported third-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations despite a slowdown in its fixed-income trading business. Its earnings per diluted share increased 17 percent to 0.48 U.S. dollars.
Meanwhile, shares of Wells Fargo plunged nearly three percent after the bank reported third quarter revenue that missed expectations on Friday.
The banking giant reported quarterly revenue of 21.9 billion dollars, down two percent on a year-over-year basis.
JP Morgan Chase reported quarterly earnings per share of 1.76 dollars and net revenue of 26.2 billion dollars, beating market expectations. However, investors were concerned about the banking giant's 27-percent year-on-year decline in fixed income trading revenue.
Citigroup also reported better-than-expected earnings. Its earnings per diluted share in the third quarter reached 1.42 dollars while the revenues stood at 18.2 billion dollars.
BlackRock reported third quarter earnings per diluted share of 5.78 dollars, up 10 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Delta Air Lines said its quarterly adjusted earnings per diluted share was 1.57 dollars.
Retail giant Wal-Mart announced a 20-billion-U.S. dollar buyback on Tuesday. The company also said it expected to add 1,000 online grocery pickup locations at its U.S. stores in fiscal year 2019.
In addition, the Dow component expected a global unit growth of approximately 280, including new, expanded and relocated units, for each fiscal year 2018 and 2019.
Shares of Wal-Mart jumped 4.47 percent to trade at 84.13 dollars apiece after the news came out.
Another Dow component Pfizer said Tuesday that it was thinking about selling or spinning off its consumer health-care business, which generates 3.4 billion dollars in annual sales.
On the economic front, the Labor Department said on Friday its Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers increased 0.5 percent in September on a seasonally adjusted basis. Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 2.2 percent.
The consumer sentiment index, a survey of consumers by the University of Michigan, jumped to 101.1 in October, far exceeding economists' expectation of 95.
U.S. retail sales were lower than expected in September but recovered from the prior month's 0.2 percent slide.
The Commerce Department said on Friday the advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for September 2017, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were 483.9 billion dollars, an increase of 1.6 percent from the previous month, and 4.4 percent above September 2016.
On Thursday, the Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand increased 0.4 percent last month after rising 0.2 percent in August. In the 12 months through September, the index rose 2.6 percent.
In a separate report, the department said the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 243,000 in the week ending Oct. 7, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised level.
The four-week moving average was 257,500, a decrease of 9,500 from the previous week's revised average, said the department.
