The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record closing highs on Friday, marking their biggest monthly gains in years. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe reports that both indexes recorded their sixth consecutive weekly advances, the longest streak since October, 2024. Meanwhile, the Dow closed slightly lower. As May starts, Reuters says the stock market enters a typically weak six-month period. Wrapping up a momentous week for corporate earnings, in which reporting companies accounted for more than two-fifths of the S&P 500's total market capitalization, analysts now see total first quarter earnings growth of 27.8 percent, year-on-year. That's an 11.7-percentage-point jump from where the estimate stood a week ago, and marks the biggest earnings growth since the fourth quarter of 2021. Five of the companies in the Magnificent Seven of artificial intelligence related stocks reported last week, and investors paid close attention to the timing and extent to which huge investments in the nascent technology are starting to pay off. Of the 314 companies that have posted results, 83 per cent have beaten earnings estimates and 78 per cent reported better-than-expected revenue.