NEW YORK — A late round of buying nudged the stock market to a slight gain Friday, despite disappointing jobs data, ending a week of gains to begin 2010.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 11.33 points, or 0.1 percent, at 10,618.19. It ended the week up 1.8 percent.
Coca-Cola was the measure’s worst performer, down 1.9 percent after JPMorgan Chase downgraded the stock to “neutral” from “overweight,” noting the next six months will be “difficult” for stocks it covers in the beverages and household-products sectors.
The warning weighed on the entire consumer-staples sector.
Colgate-Palmolive and Alberto-Culver, which aren’t Dow components, also were downgraded. Colgate fell 1.8 percent, while Alberto-Culver shed 1.9 percent.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 3.29 points, or 0.3 percent, to 1,144.98. For the week, the S&P rose 2.7 percent.
The technology-focused Nasdaq composite index gained 17.12 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,317.17. It rose 2.1 percent on the week.
Investors largely took in stride the Labor Department’s Friday report that U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by a larger-than-expected 85,000 last month. The government also revised earlier data upward, showing that jobs increased by 4,000 in November, the first gain in almost two years. The unemployment rate remained at 10 percent, slightly better than the 10.1 percent rate that was expected.
Through most of the recent economic slowdown, the stock market has tended to shrug off such weak jobs news. Since the beginning of 2008, the S&P 500 has averaged a 0.3 percent gain on days when the Labor Department’s jobs report fell shy of expectations, while the index has fallen 0.1 percent on days when it beat expectations, according to data from Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati.
Todd Salamone, head of trading at Schaeffer’s, attributed that trend in part to the market’s tendency to factor in “whisper numbers” that are more accurate than Wall Street’s published consensus ahead of big announcements. Under the current circumstances, he said it also may help that many traders are worried about a possible Federal Reserve interest-rate increase sometime this year.
“With so much of that sentiment out there, some people may look at a jobs report like today’s and feel a little more comfortable that the Fed is going to hold steady,” Salamone said.
A separate report showed U.S. wholesale inventories rose 1.5 percent when Wall Street expected a 0.3 percent decline. That increase was the largest since a 1.5 percent climb in October 2004.
The data come ahead of the unofficial start of the fourth-quarter earnings-reporting season Monday, when Alcoa Inc. is set to release its results.
Meanwhile, the dollar fell against both the euro and the yen.
