By Nathan Allen and Corrie Driebusch 

U.S. stocks rose Friday, brushing off a mixed-bag of earnings reports as investors instead focused on central-bank comments that seemed to strengthen the case for an interest-rate cut.

Second-quarter earnings swung individual companies, as the first big week of firms reporting results came to a close. Technology companies and financial firms dominated the earnings calendar, with Microsoft shares rising 2.2% Friday after the stalwart reported profits that beat expectations and said that its cloud-computing business drove revenue to a record. Also on Friday, American Express shares fell 1% after the credit-card company reported a rise in total expenses.

Overall, the second quarter is shaping up to be an exercise in companies trying to exceed beaten-down expectations. With about 15% of companies in the S&P 500 reporting results, earnings are on track to contract 2.1% in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to FactSet. At the end of June, analysts predicted second-quarter earnings would contract 3% from a year earlier, FactSet data show.

Individual companies that have missed analyst estimates are swiftly punished by traders, but their losses so far aren't enough to make a big dent in the broader market's march higher this month.

On Friday, the The S&P 500 rose 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 83 points, or 0.3%, to 27306 and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%. All three indexes remain slightly lower over the past week, while they are still on track for month gains of at least 2% following big rises in June.

After wavering earlier in the week, U.S. stocks closed higher Thursday after New York Fed President John Williams said central banks must take swift action when faced with adverse economic conditions, which some investors interpreted as signaling a 0.5% rate cut in July. However, the bank later said Mr. Williams didn't intend to signal any specific policy changes.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.055% on Friday, while the 2-year-note yield, sensitive to shifting expectations for Fed policy, ticked up to 1.814%, according to data from FactSet. The short-term Treasury yields had fallen sharply following those remarks.

"Given that a 50-basis-point cut would trigger a further rally in global equities, any remark of dovish nature translates immediately into higher asset prices," said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at London Capital Group.

On Friday, investors will be watching for the University of Michigan's July consumer-confidence data. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast the consumer sentiment index logged in at 99.0 in the beginning of July, up slightly from 98.2 at the end of June. Such a rise could reduce the likelihood of a large rate cut by the Fed at the end of the month and provide some support for the U.S. dollar, Rabobank said.

Meanwhile, the price of oil rose, rebounding from the month's lows and marking a second day of volatility in the prices. Iran denied that the U.S. Navy downed one of its drones in the Strait of Hormuz, following several close encounters between American warships and the Iranian military on Thursday in the vital oil shipping route that have further raised tensions between the nations. U.S.-traded crude oil recently traded up 0.4% to $55.64 a barrel.

In Europe, the basic-resources, industrial-goods and food-and-beverage sectors were among gainers on the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 index, which rose 0.2% following a two-day losing streak.

France's Publicis Groupe dropped 7.6% after the advertising giant cut its outlook, prompting a downgrade from analysts at Liberum.

Brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev was among Europe's biggest gainers, rising more than 5% after the Budweiser maker agreed to sell its Australian subsidiary to Japan's Asahi Group Holdings in an $11.3 billion deal in an effort to pare its debt load.

In Asia, most benchmark gauges traded higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose more than 1%, buoyed by consumer-goods companies. Japan's Nikkei 225 index climbed 2%.

-- Lauren Almeida contributed to this article

Write to Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 19, 2019 10:12 ET (14:12 GMT)

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