Nasdaq adds to record with soaring Amazon, Microsoft

The Nasdaq solidly extended its closing record Friday with strong boosts from Amazon, Microsoft and Google.

That proved enough to edge the S&P 500 up to a new high as well, with overall trade further charged by the three-way merger fight between generic pharmaceutical companies Teva, Mylan and Perrigo, and the collapse of Comcast's $45 billion merger bid for Time Warner Cable.

The Nasdaq Composite Index added 36.02 points (0.71 percent) at 5,092.08, boosting the record broken on Thursday, 15 years after the heights of the dot-com boom.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 21.45 (0.12 percent) to 18,080.14, while the S&P 500 added 4.76 (0.23 percent) at 2,117.69, 0.3 point above the previous record on March 2.

The Nasdaq surge came on the back of good data in the quarterly reports of the three big tech stocks: Amazon shares soared 14.8 percent and Microsoft 10.5 percent as they reported strong gains in cloud computing.

Google meanwhile added 3.3 percent after reporting a four percent rise in net profit on 12 percent growth in revenues, despite significant hits from the strong dollar.

Mylan ignored the bid from Israeli generic drugs rival Teva earlier this week to up its own offer for Perrigo to $32.6 billion, only to be rebuffed by the Perrigo board for the second time this week, which said the offer was too low.

Shareholders too were evidently disappointed: Perrigo stock fell 4.3 percent. Teva meanwhile reiterated its $40.1 billion offer for Mylan. Mylan's stock finished up 3.2 percent, and Teva, 1.8 percent.

Comcast shares added 0.7 percent after they confirmed that, due to Justice Department antitrust opposition, they would drop their merger agreement with Time Warner Cable.

Time Warner, almost immediately reported by The Wall Street Journal to be in the sights of Charter Communications, surged 4.3 percent. Charter gained 1.2 percent.

But the rest of the market was more subdued as earnings reports flowed in that, while matching downplayed expectations, also gave reason to be cautious about growth going ahead.

Losers outpaced gainers on both the Dow and the Nasdaq, with Schlumberger, Novartis, Facebook and Twitter all losing more than one percent to hold back the broader indices.

Tom Cahill of Ventura Wealth Management said that companies achieving understated earnings forecasts have provided support to share prices where they are, but cannot push them higher.

"The earnings expectations for the first quarter were lowered enough that companies are easily meeting expectations. It puts enough of a floor in the market to sustain it," he said.

Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell to 1.92 percent from 1.95 percent Thursday, while the 30-year dropped to 2.62 percent from 2.63 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.