By Noel Randewich
(Reuters) - Wall Street rose on Thursday, with the Nasdaq up 1 percent near a record high after eBay and Netflix reported strong quarterly results.
Sentiment was also bolstered after the Greek parliament voted in favour of austerity measures.
Dour quarterly reports from Goldman Sachs and UnitedHealth capped gains on the Dow.
The S&P has surged almost 4 percent from eight days ago, when widespread fears about Greece and a Chinese stock selloff pushed the index to its lowest level since March.
"It just proves the U.S. market continues to be resilient in the face of what seems like and endless list of global worries," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa.
At 2:20 pm the Dow Jones industrial average was up 41.09 points, or 0.23 percent, at 18,091.26 and the S&P 500 gained 13.52 points, or 0.64 percent, to 2,120.92.
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The Nasdaq Composite added 52.40 points, or 1.03 percent, to 5,151.34, near its record high of 5164.36 hit in June.
Nine of the 10 major S&P 500 sectors were higher, with the consumer staples index's <.SPLRCS> 1.11 percent advance leading the gainers. The materials index <.SPLRCM> was the lone laggard, down 0.35 percent.
The S&P 500 currently trades at 16.8 times forward 12 months earnings, above the 10-year average of 14.7 times, according to StarMine data.
U.S. companies are expected to post their worst sales decline in nearly six years in the second quarter, while profit is expected to have fallen 2.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters estimates. But expectations are low.
"What this season confirms is that we are in a modest growth and modest inflation environment," said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis.
Netflix surged 17.61 percent to a record high of $115.42 a day after reporting strong subscribers numbers.
Citigroup reported its highest quarterly profit in eight years and its shares rose as much as 3.9 percent to a six-and-a-half year high of $58.64.
EBay rose 5.2 percent to a record high of $66.71 after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly profit and announcing the sale of its enterprise business.
But Goldman fell 1.2 percent after posting its smallest quarterly profit in nearly four years, while UnitedHealth fell 0.5 percent after missing analysts' cost estimates.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,098 to 956. On the Nasdaq, 1,833 issues rose and 929 fell.
The S&P 500 was posting 43 new 52-week highs and 12 new lows; the Nasdaq was recording 169 new highs and 55 new lows.
(Editing by Savio D'Souza and Nick Zieminski)