Stocks gained ground Thursday on well-received earnings from a pair of blue chips. While upside was contained early on by a few disappointing mega-cap results and uneven economic data, the main equity indexes rallied into the close to end the month at new record highs.
Alphabet (GOOGL) found itself on the positive side of the ledger, adding 10% after the Google parent reported higher-than-expected first-quarter earnings and revenue. Google Services revenue was up 16% year over year, while Google Cloud revenue surged 63%. The company also hiked its quarterly dividend by 5%
