Stock market today: Dow rallies to wrap up best month since January

Investing.com -- The Dow closer higher Friday, wrapping up its best month since January as a surge in energy stocks on better-than-expected quarterly result offset a wobble in Amazon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.80%, or 272 points, taking total gains for April to 2.5%. The Nasdaq added 0.7%, and the S&P 500 gained 0.8%.

Energy stocks jumped more than 1% as investors cheered better-than-expected quarterly results from the oil majors Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM) and Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX).

Financials, meanwhile, remained in the green despite a 43% slump in First Republic Bank (NYSE:FRC) after CNBC reported that regulators are looking to send the battered mid-size American lender into receivership to pave the way for a sale to another bank.

A rally in Comerica Inc (NYSE:CMA), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) and Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION) helped push the broader regional banking sector up more than 1%.

Materials were also involved in the heavy lifting for the broader market, led by a more than 4% surge in Eastman Chemical (NYSE:EMN) after the company reported first-quarter earnings that topped analyst estimates.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), meanwhile, delivered quarterly results that beat on both the top and bottom lines, but the e-commerce giant also flagged slowing growth in cloud, sending its shares more than 4% lower.

“Amazon disclosed that the Q1 AWS 16% YoY revenue growth rate decelerated by 500bps in the month of April as the company continues to meet customer needs with respect to cloud computing optimizations,” Goldman Sachs said in a note.

Snap (NYSE:SNAP) was also trading deep in the red, down 17%, after the social media company reported first-quarter revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations amid a drop in advertising income.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) jumped more than 4% after reporting better-than-feared results, underpinned by performance in its data center business.

Looking to the second half of the year, Deutsche Bank said it remains confident that Intel “should see tailwinds from cyclically & seasonally improving demand…higher gross margin and generate incremental free cash flow."

The wave of earnings this week including from big tech mostly has continued to come in better-than-feared, stoking optimism that the broader market climb could continue.

"The weight of evidence points us towards an accelerating global economy with earnings growth beating (lowered) expectations but more importantly forward revisions picking up not down," Jay Pelosky, TPW Advisory Founder and Principal said in a note.

On the economic front, signs that sticky inflation isn't likely to go away anytime soon stoked investor expectations for a hawkish Federal Reserve at the upcoming 2-3 May meeting. The economic data has been sending some mixed signals, Jefferies said, but "what is clear and consistent in the data is that inflation is still too high."