Wall Street stocks finished solidly higher on Friday (Apr 26), concluding a roller-coaster week on a positive note following strong results from Google and Microsoft.

Both tech giants emphasised significant investments in artificial intelligence, cheering the market and helping to offset another disappointing US inflation reading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.4 per cent at 38,239.66.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 1 per cent to 5,099.96, and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2 per cent to 15,927.90.

Friday’s gains pushed all three major indices into positive territory for the week.

The personal consumption expenditures price index rose at an annual rate of 2.7 per cent in March, up 0.2 percentage point from a month earlier.

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The benchmark is closely monitored by the US Federal Reserve, which has indicated it could keep interest high for longer if inflation remains elevated.

Among individual companies, Google parent Alphabet shot up 10 per cent after announcing a dividend and the authorisation of US$70 billion in share buybacks.

Alphabet reported profit of US$23.7 billion on revenue of US$80.5 billion, crediting growth in cloud computing, YouTube and online search advertising.

Social media company Snap, which runs the youth-focused Snapchat, soared more than 27 per cent after it reported more quarterly revenue than expected by analysts.

At the opposite extreme, chip company Intel sank 9.2 per cent as it projected a loss in the second quarter on revenues that lagged expectations.

The forecast exacerbates “concerns that the company has simply fallen too far behind competitors Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Taiwan Semiconductor,” Briefing.com said of Intel. AFP