Market ends the week with gains

NEW YORK - The stock market ended its best week in a year with another gain Friday as investors placed their last bets before the start of second-quarter earnings reports.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 59 points, or 0.6 percent. That gave the Dow its biggest weekly advance in a year, 5.3 percent. Broader indexes posted bigger gains.

Stocks also got a lift from news that China had renewed Google's license to operate in the country. The renewal was in doubt because of a strained relationship between the company and China's government over censorship of search results. Google rose 2.4 percent.

News on the economy wasn't as upbeat. Inventories held by wholesalers rose in May for a fifth straight month, though sales dropped for the first time in more than a year. The government said wholesale inventories rose 0.5 percent and sales dropped 0.3 percent. It was the first drop since March 2009, when major stock indexes hit a 12-year low.

But the market appeared to hold on to optimism fed by Thursday's report of a drop in the number of newly laid-off people seeking unemployment benefits. That report ended a string of bad news about the job market, and likely contributed to investors' more positive mood going into earning season.

Earnings season starts with aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. on Monday. The company's stock rose 2.1 percent ahead of its report. Other companies scheduled to release results next week include banking giants JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp.

General Electric Co. and chipmaker Intel Corp. are also scheduled to report earnings next week.

Overseas markets rose after a surprise interest-rate increase in South Korea was seen as a sign of confidence that the global economy will continue expand. Central banks around the world, including in the United States, have kept rates at historically low rates to stimulate growth.

The Dow rose 59.04, or 0.6 percent, to 10,198.03. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.71, or 0.7 percent, to 1,077.96, while the technology-focused Nasdaq composite index rose 21.05, or 1 percent, to 2,196.45.

Google rose $10.93 to $467.49. Alcoa rose 22 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $10.94, while JPMorgan climbed 69 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $38.85. Bank of America advanced 25 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $15.11, while GE rose 12 cents to $14.95. Intel advanced 14 cents to $20.24.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 9.16, or 1.5 percent, to 629.43.