STOCK MARKET – Swedish stocks have rallied during the week as better-than-expected company reports keep rolling in.

Strong Swedish company reports made stocks at the Stockholm exchange rally during the week. Compared to last Friday OMX Stockholm 30 was up more than 4.50 percent in midday trading. On Wednesday the index reached its highest level this year, beating the previous record from 17 September.

Swedish risk appetite is also boosted by positive signals from across the Atlantic. So far, 32 of the companies in the U.S. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that have reported earnings, 28 have beaten analysts’ estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“There could be another leg up if the earnings season continues to be as promising as it has started,” Lothar Mentel, chief investment officer at Octopus Investment in London, told the news wire.

Ericsson, the world's leading mobile phone network provider, rose on Friday after its joint venture Sony Ericsson posted a better-than-expected net result. The third-quarter net loss was 164 million euros, less than analysts anticipated. On Friday’s midday trading Ericsson was up 2.11 percent.

However, Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia fell sharply on Thursday after reporting a net loss of 559 million euros, its first shortfall in a decade.

SEB, Nordea and Swedbank rose Wednesday after JPMorgan Chase & Co, the second- largest U.S. bank by assets, said profit in the third quarter soared almost sevenfold.

The same day positive signals from China, where export last month showed the smallest decrease this year, made companies such as SKF, Sandvik, Atlas Copco, Scania and Volvo gain on the exchange.

The Wallenberg family’s publicly traded holding company Investor said Tuesday it swung to a 12.51 billion kronor ($1.8 billion) net profit as valuation rebounded. The company's performance is considered a reliable indicator of the state of the Swedish economy as it has stakes in nearly all of Sweden's major companies.

"Over the summer, it has become increasingly clear that we most likely have seen the worst of this recession”, Investor’s Chief executive Börje Ekholm said in the report

Since the turn of the year the OXM Stockholm 30 is up 41 percent.

This article has been published at The Swedish Wire and Nasdaq OMX Nordic.