Wall Street closed higher on Friday as weak jobs data for July raised hope that the Federal Reserve may hold interest rates steady for longer. The Nasdaq Composite, the S&P 500 and the Dow ended in positive territory. The three major indexes also posted positive results for the week.
How Did the Benchmarks Perform?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 0.3%, or 151.83 points, to close at 54,036.93. Sixteen components of the 30-stock index ended in positive territory, and 14 ended in the negative. The major gainer of the Dow was Salesforce, Inc. (CRM). The stock price of this customer relationship management CRM technology rose 3.2%. Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.3% or 342.26 points, to close at 26,690.62.
The S&P 500 gained 0.6% to end at 7,757.64. Out of the 11 broad sectors of the broad-market index, eight ended in positive territory, while three were in negative territory. The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (XLY), the Materials Select Sector SPDR (XLE) and the Information Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLK) rose 1.3%, 1.5% and 1.3%, respectively, while the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) fell 1.2%.
The fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), decreased by 1.7% to 14.90. A total of 16.94 billion shares were traded on Friday, lower than the last 20-session average of 17.56 billion. The S&P 500 posted nine new 52-week highs, and one new low, and the Nasdaq Composite recorded 123 new highs and 77 new lows.
Weak July Jobs Data
The Department of Labor reported that the nonfarm payrolls for July declined by 23,000, compared with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 82,000. The metric for June was revised to 20,000 from the previously reported 57,000.
Unemployment rate came in at 4.1% in July compared with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 4.8% and June’s metric of 4.2%. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate edged down 0.1 percentage point sequentially to 61.4%, while the employment-population ratio fell 0.1 percentage point to 58.9%.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.1% sequentially in July, below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 0.3%. Year over year, the metric increased 3.2% in July. The average workweek remained unchanged sequentially at 34.3 hours in July.
Weekly Roundup
The major U.S. indexes ended the week higher, with the S&P 500 up 3.58%, the Nasdaq advancing 5.19%, and the Dow gaining 2.96%.
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