Jobs Data Help Stocks End Higher

Wall Street carved out a solid advance Friday after data on job creation, manufacturing and inflation injected the market with renewed confidence about the economy and sent major indexes to new record closes.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was the biggest gainer among the major indicators and moved toward its all-time trading high.
Investors have been trying to glean from recent economic data any clues about the state of the economy and the direction of interest rates. The market hopes a slowing economy will prompt the Federal Reserve to lower rates, something the central bank is loath to do if inflation remains defiantly above the Fed’s target. The job figures Friday pleased Wall Street, however, because they showed growth without an attendant rise in wage inflation.
“If you can get job growth without wage inflation, that’s about as positive as you can get,” said Randy Frederick, director of derivatives at Charles Schwab & Co.
Wall Street marked a milestone this week when the S&P set its first record close since 2000, signaling the broader market’s recovery from the dot-com implosion early in the decade.
Despite gains for the week that handily outpaced those of the Dow and S&P, the Nasdaq remains well off of its closing high of 5,048.62, set in March 2000; the index was arguably bloated by investors’ frenzy over high-tech and Internet issues.
As stocks climbed Friday, bonds fell sharply. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.95 percent from 4.89 percent late Thursday.
Light, sweet crude rose $1.07 to $65.08 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.