January 30, 2014: Markets opened higher on Thursday led by solid earnings reports from some heavy-hitters and a weakening of the Japanese yen. This morning’s advance estimate for fourth-quarter GDP growth was higher than expected, but that was offset by a rise in new claims for jobless benefits and a drop in pending home sales. Today’s rise was all about earnings. The DJIA closed up 0.70%, the S&P 500 closed up 1.13%, and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.77%.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 both got a big boost today from Facebook Inc. (NYSE: FB) following a huge 63% jump in revenues and a boost of nearly 50% in mobile daily active users. The growth of mobile and mobile advertising at Facebook pushed the stock to a new high today of $62.50. The stock closed up 14.16% at $61.11. The 52-week low is $22.67. Trading volume was more than double the daily average of 69 million shares traded.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) rose 1.77% for the day following a fourth-quarter report that beat estimates. By virtue of its share price the company punches well above its weight in the DJIA, accounting for nearly 9% of the price-weighted index. Shares closed at $220.96 in a 52-week range of $154.14 to $235.50. Volume was about 25% above the daily average of around 3 million shares.

The largest percentage gainer today was Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE), up 3.04% to close at $73.95 in a 52-week range of $53.27 to $80.26. Nike was riding the coattails of Under Armour Inc. (NYSE: UA) which reported huge results last night and saw shares rise about 23%. Nike’s volume today was roughly 8-times the daily average of around 940,000 shares.

A quick turnaround for Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) today, up 2.8% to close at $93.16 in a 52-week range of $79.49 to $99.70. The company said this morning that it has reached an agreement with Citibank to purchase about $1.7 billion of Cat’s common stock under an accelerated stock repurchase plan. The share price regained about half the $5 a share it had lost this week as of Wednesday night. Volume was about 80% higher than the daily average of around 5.3 million shares traded.

Of the Dow 30 stocks only 5 closed lower today while 25 closed higher.

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