Business Highlights – Wall Street enjoys stellar week

NEW YORK (AP) ? Wall Street bounded higher Friday, hurtling the Dow Jones industrial average to a record close approaching 13,000 as investors celebrated a week of surprisingly strong earnings reports. The major indexes all had their third straight winning week, their longest such streak since October.

Investors who had tempered their expectations for first-quarter earnings on Monday were energized by the initial wave of upbeat results. So far into the earnings season, 16 of the 30 Dow components have posted financial results for the first three months of the year _ with 10 surpassing analyst forecasts. Dow components Honeywell International Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Pfizer Inc., and McDonald’s Corp. all reported earnings Friday.

Better-than-expected results allowed stocks to extend their best April rally in four years, and one that pushed the Nasdaq composite index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to six-year highs.

The Dow closed up 153.35, or 1.20 percent, at 12,961.98, after setting a new intraday high of 12,966.29.

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SAN ANTONIO (AP) ? Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation’s largest operator of radio stations, said Friday it agreed to sell its 56 television stations to a private equity firm for $1.2 billion.

The company had announced it would sell the stations last November, part of a divestiture that includes the possible sale of 448 radio stations. So far, the company has reached agreements to sell 161 radio stations for a total of about $331 million. Clear Channel?s radio stations in McMinnville are currently for sale.

Clear Channel owns more than 1,100 radio stations nationwide and plans to retain about 675, mostly in larger markets.

The divestiture plan was announced at the same time the company first disclosed that it agreed to be acquired by a group of private equity investors, led by Bain Capital Partners LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP.

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CHICAGO (AP) ? McDonald’s Corp. extended its hot streak to four years with a 22 percent jump in first-quarter earnings, and also said Friday it will sell nearly 1,600 restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean to a franchisee.

The announcement sent the fast-food leader’s shares briefly to an all-time high of $49.70 before they dipped in profit-taking. The once-stagnant stock has quadrupled since falling to $12.12 in March 2003.

The planned transaction involving restaurants in 18 countries will result in a non-cash impairment charge of $1.6 billion in the second quarter.