Stocks rise on Wall Street as jobs report calms Fed fears | National News
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A currency trader walks by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 4, 2021. Asian shares mostly slipped Friday, dragged lower by a decline in technology stocks on Wall Street.
A currency trader watches computer monitors near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 4, 2021. Asian shares mostly slipped Friday, dragged lower by a decline in technology stocks on Wall Street.
A currency trader walks by the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 4, 2021. Asian shares mostly slipped Friday, dragged lower by a decline in technology stocks on Wall Street.
Currency traders watch computer monitors near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 4, 2021. Asian shares mostly slipped Friday, dragged lower by a decline in technology stocks on Wall Street.
FILE – In this Nov. 5, 2020 file photo, a sign for Wall Street is carved in the side of a building, in New York. Stocks are pushing higher in early trading on Wall Street, Friday, June 4, 2021, putting most major indexes back to gains for the week.
Stocks are pushing higher on Wall Street Friday after a lukewarm report on the job market raised hopes the Federal Reserve will keep the accelerator floored on its support for the economy.
U.S. employers added 559,000 jobs in May, according to the Labor Department. It’s an improvement from April’s sluggish gain, though it still fell short of economists’ forecasts.
The report also showed that companies are still struggling to find enough workers as the economy rapidly recovers from the pandemic recession. People are either looking for better jobs than they had before the pandemic, retiring early, worried about child care or otherwise taking time on the sidelines from the job market.
“There are still seasonal issues,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. There is, she said, a “disconnect between job openings, which have been incredibly robust, and the desire or willingness to go back to work.”
The S&P 500 rose 0.7% as of 12:27 p.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 115 points, or 0.3%, to 34,692 and the Nasdaq rose 1.4%.
The early gains put the benchmark S&P 500 index back on track for a weekly gain after several choppy days of trading. Technology stocks were biggest gainers and doing the most to push the broader market higher. Microsoft rose 2.2% and Oracle rose 2.6%.
