US markets rally on better than expected jobs data

07 Dec 2019 Evaluate

The US markets traded jubilantly and ended with a significant gain of around a percent on Friday. Sentiments remained up-beat after the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report showing much stronger than expected U.S. job growth in the month of November. The report said non-farm payroll employment surged up by 266,000 jobs in November after climbing by an upwardly revised 156,000 jobs in October. The street had expected an increase of about 180,000 jobs compared to the addition of 128,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. The Labor Department said notable job gains occurred in healthcare and in professional and technical services, while manufacturing employment also rose as General Motors (GM) workers returned from a strike. With the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent in November from 3.6 percent in October. The unemployment rate was expected to remain unchanged.

Traders also remained optimistic with preliminary data released by the University of Michigan showed a much bigger than expected improvement in U.S. consumer sentiment in the month of December. The report said the consumer sentiment index climbed to 99.2 in December from the final November reading of 96.8. The street had expected the index to inch up to 97.0. With the much bigger than expected increase, the consumer sentiment index reached its highest level since hitting 100.0 in May. Surveys of Consumers chief economist Richard Curtin said nearly all of the improvement in consumer sentiment in December was among upper income households, who reported near record gains in household wealth due to record high stock prices.

Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 337.27 points or 1.22 percent to 28,015.06, Nasdaq added 85.83 points or 1.00 percent to 8,656.53 and S&P 500 was up by 28.48 points or 0.91 percent to 3,145.91.

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