S&P 500 on track to end at record; BoJ move adds fuel to rally

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose sharply on Friday, with the Dow hitting an intraday record high as the Bank of Japan significantly ramped up its stimulus program, just days after the Federal Reserve wound down its years-long package of incentives.

The Dow was on track to set a new closing record high as well, along with the S&P 500, after the December e-minis contract hit an intraday record.

Gains were broad, with the benchmark S&P 500 index posting 125 new 52-week highs and two new lows. The Nasdaq Composite recorded 218 new highs and 31 new lows. Among the biggest positives on the S&P 500, Abbvie shares rose 3.5 percent after the drugmaker reported quarterly earnings and said it could deliver strong long-term growth without rushing into another big merger attempt.

The Bank of Japan's board voted to accelerate purchases of Japanese government bonds while tripling its purchases of exchange-traded funds and real-estate investment trusts.

That could help the outlook for stocks, especially if the U.S. economy keeps improving and earnings beat expectations as they have been.

"The market technically went from violating moving averages to making new highs, and you get this surprise move out of the Bank of Japan which is kind of giving a little bit of a tailwind to the rally," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp. in Chicago.

The majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings expectations so far. With results in from 70 percent of companies, 75.8 percent are reporting earnings above analyst expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data, well above the 63 percent average in the past 20 years.

At 2:27 p.m. (1827 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average rose 162.2 points, or 0.94 percent, to 17,357.62, the S&P 500 gained 18.72 points, or 0.94 percent, to 2,013.37 and the Nasdaq Composite added 57.77 points, or 1.27 percent, to 4,623.91.

The U.S. dollar rallied as well, pressuring crude oil prices and spot gold, which dropped 2.6 percent, the most for any day this year. A strong dollar makes commodities such as oil more expensive for buyers using other currencies.

Among the day's biggest percentage gains, shares of Expedia rose 5.5 percent a day after it reported results. GoPro shares jumped 13.8 percent after forecasting better-than-expected holiday quarter sales.

The largest decliner on the Nasdaq was Starbucks, down 2.1 percent, a day after it reported results.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,262 to 767, for a 2.95-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,866 issues rose and 825 fell for a 2.26-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, James Dalgleish, Leslie Adler and Chris Reese)