Corporate earnings commanded attention, shaping trading over the last foursessions. Strong results boosted energy and defense stocks while computerand biotech shares suffered from concern about their high valuations.

The Dow ( DJI - news) ended up 169.09 points, or 1.58 percent, at10,844.05, putting it within just 80 points of the mark held before lastFriday's plunge of 618 points. Fast food chain McDonald's Corp. (NYSE:MCD -news), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT - news) and American Express(NYSE:AXP - news) led the blue-chip gauge higher to offset weakness intech giants Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) and Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - news)

Technology investors nudged nearly every tech sector lower, pushing theNasdaq composite index ( IXIC - news) down 1.69 percent, or 62.53 points to3,643.88.

Broader stock measures struggled during the day as they straddled the techand non-tech worlds. The Standard & Poor's 500 index ( SPX - news) ended up7.07 points, or 0.50 percent, at 1,434.54, while the Russell 2000 index (RUT - news) slipped 4.39 points, or 0.90 percent, at 481.84.

``The market has got to get a proper footing at this point,'' said DickStein, chief technical analyst at Boca Raton-based Noble InternationalInvestments.

``There is no sign the economy is slowing,'' he said. ''There are an awfullot of people still playing the market because they can't get to Vegas orAtlantic City. And the big problem is people's expectations have gotten tounrealistic points.''

Still, market watchers said stocks ended the week on a strong note despitethe volatility. Last week, Wall Street's three major equity indexes loggedtheir biggest one-day point drops - only to rebound early this week.

``The market has been acting pretty darn well,'' said Arnie Owen, managingdirector of capital markets at Roth Capital Partners.

``Tax selling was fierce. It kicked off margin calls. We had a valuationissue,'' he said about last week's pullback. ``But a lot of the fluff hascome out of the market and I think that is probably the healthiest thingthat could happen.''

After this week's gains, the blue-chip Dow is still off 5.68 percent forthe year while the Nasdaq is down 10.46 percent.

Defense stocks were among the biggest winners. General Dynamics Corp.(NYSE:GD - news) jumped 1 9/16 to 53 9/16 on an upgrade from SG Cowen andstrong quarterly earnings.

A spate of aerospace and defense-related companies reported financialresults that mostly beat expectations, including Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA -news) and United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX - news). Boeing stock rose 31/16 to 40 1/4 and United Technologies gained 3 3/16 to 64 1/16.

Leading financial services stocks also showed strength. American Express(AXP.N) rose 3 3/4 to 143 and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC - news) rose 11/16 to 41 13/16 after the two formed an alliance to distribute mutualfunds and annuity products. But trading was subdued ahead of the holidayand the bond market closed early. Most investors were reluctant to placehuge bets going into the break,analysts said.

-- The Wall Street Journal