NEW YORK — U.S. stocks bounced higher Friday, with the S&P reaching an all-time high and the major indexes scoring solid weekly gains, after the much-awaited jobs report offered as-expected growth in September and a surprise upward revision to past counts, calming worries about the economy.
“For the time being, the sense is, the sky is not falling. We have a major concern about the magnitude of the slowdown in the U.S. economy, so this is clearly good news,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
“The revision is an eye-popper – most surprising is the 93,000 jobs they somehow missed,” Hogan said.
“The caveat to all this euphoria would be twofold: there is a large bet that the Fed cuts rates in October; that bet may now not look so advantageous. You better be careful; sometimes that light at the end of a tunnel is a train,” Hogan said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 91.7 points ahead at 14,066.0, giving it a weekly gain of 1.2 percent. Of the blue-chip index’s 30 components, just four closed in the red.
Alcoa Inc. fronted the Dow’s advance, its stock up 3 percent. The aluminum producer late Thursday detailed $845 million in restructuring charges.
Boeing Co. registered the largest losses on the Dow, its shares off 2.2 percent amid worries the aerospace giant may not meet its delivery schedule for its best-selling 787 Dreamliner.
The S&P 500 added 14.75 points to finish at 1,557.59, after hitting an all-time high of 1,561.91 earlier on. The S&P climbed 2 percent for the week.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite also scored impressive gains, climbing 46.75 points to 2,780.32, bolstered by the likes of Yahoo Inc., up 2.6 percent, after Sanford Co. Bernstein & Co. suggested the company should split into three parts to lift its market value.
The Nasdaq capped the session with a weekly advance of 2.9 percent.
Trading volume passed 1.2 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, with advancing stocks beating decliners by a ratio of more than 3-to-1. On the Nasdaq, 2 billion shares traded hands, and advancers topped declining issues by a 3-1 ratio.
The government said the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.7 percent in September, but job growth was stronger than expected during the past three months, with nonfarm payrolls climbing by 110,000 in September, very close to expectations.
With the monthly unemployment report under its belt, the market’s focus in part becomes deciding whether the data changes its recent view that the Federal Reserve would likely cap its two-day meeting at the end of the month with another interest-rate cut.
The Fed’s half-point cut on Sept. 18 could be enough to keep the economy from sinking from the financial market turmoil, said Donald Kohn, vice chairman of the Fed Board, in a speech delivered Friday in Philadelphia.
