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Wall Street shrugged off instability in Egypt to rally to a two-and-a-half year high Tuesday, boosted by encouraging economic data and better-than-expected corporate earnings.

Better-than-expected earnings from General Electric helped lift the Dow and S&P 500. The Nasdaq closed lower after disappointing results from chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices. Overall, the week's strong earnings bode well for coming corporate reports.

Apple, BofA, Morgan Stanley, IBM, GE, Goldman and Google are among the names reporting this week. And if last week's numbers are any guide, the market should have plenty of reasons to rally -- especially because expectations aren't all that great.

Fourth-quarter 2010 earnings season ramps up this week. Analysts expect strong results from some big corporate names. And on the heels of last week's big earnings beat from JPMorgan Chase, the financial sector will have plenty more results to peruse this week.

Stocks ended the week on a positive note despite economic reports that fell short of expectations. But Cort Gwon of FBN Securities says there was lots to cheer about as fears over the debt crisis in Europe lessened and U.S. companies announced stellar earnings.

Stocks closed broadly higher Wednesday after Portugal's government had no trouble in tapping global debt markets, helping ease European debt fears. The euro gained at the dollar's expense, which lifted a broad basket of commodities as well as U.S. equities.

This week was all about jobs reports, and after December's employment numbers fell short of expectations, stocks ended the first week of trading in 2011 on a down note. Kenny Polcari, managing director at ICAP Corporates explains from the New York Stock Exchange.

Wall Street started the new year with a robust jump, helped by encouraging corporate and economic news that pushed the broad market to a 28-month high. The S&P 500 has now reclaimed nearly 90% of its losses from the bear-market bottom of March 2009.

Stocks closed broadly higher Tuesday, helped by more deal activity in the financial sector and upbeat earnings from the tech sector. After more than two years, the market has regained all its losses following the implosion of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.