Stocks Open Mostly Higher, S&P Extends Record Run

U.S. stocks opened mostly higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 index extending its record rise, as investors
applauded better-than-expected quarterly results from Google Inc. (GOOG) and Morgan Stanley (MS). The Dow industrials lately rose 3.16 points, or 0.02%, to 15,374.81. The S&P 500 index gained 6.72 points, or 0.39%, to 1,739.87. The Nasdaq Composite added 30.83 points, or 0.80%, to 3,893.98.

Google (GOOG) blew out its third-quarter earnings estimates, as the Internet search giant shows paid click volumes aren’t slowing down anytime soon. The company generated $10.74 per share in earnings on $11.93 billion in revenue.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley says that its third-quarter earnings almost doubled as the firm’s equity
sales and trading revenue rose. The bank earned $1.01 billion from July to September after stripping out an
accounting charge. That compares with earnings of $560 million year earlier. Total revenue amounted to $8.1 billion, up 6.5 percent from $7.6 billion a year earlier.

General Electric Co (NYS:GE) on Friday posted a record backlog of orders that the company said positioned it
well for 2014. Net income fell to $3.19 billion (1.96 billion pounds), or 31 cents per share, in the third
quarter, from $3.49 billion, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 1.5 percent to $35.7
billion.

Expectations the Federal Reserve will keep its stimulus in place for longer following the confidence-sapping
U.S. fiscal impasse pushed world shares to a five-year high and the dollar to an eight-month low on Friday.

China’s economy grew at its quickest pace this year between July and September in a rebound fuelled largely
by investment. Gross domestic product in the world’s second-biggest economy rose 7.8 percent from a year
earlier, official data showed, marking only the second quarter in the last 10 in which growth has
accelerated.