Wall Street mixed after earnings reports

By JOE BEL BRUNO

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street closed out an impressive week with a mixed performance Friday after disappointing high-tech earnings punctured some of investors' enthusiasm over better-than-expected bank earnings reports. But the major indexes still ended the week with big gains, the result of rising optimism about the troubled financial sector.

The market was clearly pleased when Citigroup Inc., while reporting a second-quarter loss Friday morning, beat analysts' forecasts and joined Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in delivering stronger results than the market anticipated. But investors who ecstatically sent the Dow Jones industrials soaring by more than 480 points over Wednesday and Thursday were brought back down to earth by results from Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Google's results were lower than expected, the result of the weakening economy hurting advertising revenue, while Microsoft missed forecasts by a penny. Also, AMD's chief executive stepped down after the chip maker posted a wider-than-expected loss.

Still, the market that has hungered for good news about financial companies after a year-long credit crisis got it from Citi. The banking company reported a $2.5 billion second-quarter loss due to write-downs tied to deteriorating credit markets. The results surpassed projections, and helped to mitigate some of the market's concerns following a big loss from Merrill Lynch & Co. reported late Thursday.

It was a good sign to some analysts that the market didn't sell off sharply after two straight days of hefty gains.

Wall Street mixed after earnings reports....