Stocks Rise on Job Numbers

The Wall Street Journal reports:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks climbed Friday morning after data showed U.S. companies added more jobs than expected in April, even as the unemployment rate rose for the first time in five months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 129 points, or 1%, to 12715, on the one-year anniversary of the "flash crash," when the Dow had its largest, fastest plunge and wiped nearly $1 trillion of stock market value in just minutes. All but one of the Dow's 30 components rose on Friday; Intel slipped 1.2%, giving back a small fraction of its climb over the past month, during which the chip giant has been the Dow's strongest performer with a 17% jump.

The Nasdaq Composite added 0.9% to 2840. The Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed 1% to 1348, with every sector in the black. The materials, industrial and energy sectors posted the largest percentage gains.

The advance comes after government data showed nonfarm payrolls rose by 244,000 last month, as the private sector posted the strongest employment gain in five years. The increase topped expectations for a rise of 185,000.

"After a week of pretty ho-hum data, to get a shot in the arm of relatively good news on Friday morning is a good thing," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel. The jump in new jobs added, particularly in the private sector, came as a surprise to many investors, who "were fearing a very mediocre jobs report," he said.

However, the unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, rose to 9% last month from 8.8% in March. It was the first increase in the jobless rate since November, when it hit 9.8%. Economists had forecast that the jobless rate would remain unchanged.