Which news must be follow.

[kainaattahir]

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.

[kainaattahir]

�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.

[kainaattahir]

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 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said in its advance GDP report, below the 3-percent forecast, as the strongest pace of consumer spending in three years resulted in a surge in imports.

[kainaattahir]

�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, North Carolina.

Fourth-quarter earnings growth for the S&P 500 is now estimated at 13.2 percent, 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 percent have topped expectations.

[kainaattahir]

Intel�s (INTC.O) shares surged as high as $50.15, their highest level since October 2000, and closed up 10.55 percent at $50.08 after results indicated that the chipmaker�s shift to higher-margin data-center business was working.

AbbVie�s (ABBV.N) shares jumped 13.77 percent 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.

[kainaattahir]

Industrial output slowed to show growth of 0.6 percent from 1.3 percent in the third quarter after the Forties oil pipeline, Britain�s biggest, was closed for more than two weeks in December after the discovery of a crack.

Britain�s construction sector shrank by 1.0 percent, its worst quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2012.

[kainaattahir]

Friday�s data showed Britain�s dominant services sector grew by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, gaining pace after growth of 0.4 percent in the third quarter, the ONS said.

In November alone, services output growth was the strongest since August 2016, jumping by 0.4 percent from October. The ONS said it was expecting no monthly growth in services in December given the scale of November�s increase.

[kainaattahir]

Separate data published on Friday showed personal insolvencies hit a three-year high, reflecting the financial strain on many households.

Given the strength of global growth, Britain�s would have grown by about 2.5 percent in 2017 were it not for the Brexit vote, Kallum Pickering, an economist with Berenberg, said.

[kainaattahir]

While recruitment agencies, letting agents and office management firms helped boost growth, companies which relied on spending by consumers had a much slower fourth quarter.

Manufacturers, who have prospered from demand spurred by the recovery in the global economy, also grew strongly.

[kainaattahir]

Finance minister Philip Hammond described the figures as excellence, underscoring the resilience of the economy.

BoE Governor Mark Carney said on Friday Britain could start to grow more quickly later this year, if there is clarity about its future relationship with the EU.