US stocks climbed further into record heights on Thursday after a report showed the US job market looks stronger than Wall Street expected.
- The S&P 500 rose 51.93 points, or 0.8%, to 6,279.35 and set an all-time high for the fourth time in five days.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 344.11 points, or 0.8%, to 44,828.53.
- The Nasdaq composite climbed 207.97 points, or 1%, to 20,601.10.
The market’s gains were widespread, and companies whose profits can get the biggest boosts when workers are feeling confident helped lead the way, the AP reports. Expedia climbed 3.2%, and Norwegian Cruise Line steamed 2.9% higher. Bank stocks were also strong, with Citigroup up 2.3%, and JPMorgan Chase up 1.9%.
The reaction was bigger in the bond market following the report from the US government, which said employers added 147,000 more jobs to their payrolls last month than they cut. Yields jumped as investors bet the better-than-expected data could keep the Federal Reserve on hold when it comes to interest rates, instead of cutting them like President Trump has loudly been calling for. Traders in the futures market now see less than a 5% chance that the Fed could cut its main interest rate at its next meeting later this month. That’s down sharply from the nearly 24% chance they saw just a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.
The unexpected acceleration in hiring signals the US job market is holding up despite worries about how Trump’s tariffs may hurt the economy and inflation. “There is nothing to complain about here,” according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “You cannot find any evidence of a nascent recession in these figures.”
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On Wall Street, Datadog rallied 14.9% after learning that its stock will join the widely followed S&P 500 index before trading begins on Wednesday. Datadog will replace Juniper Networks, which combined with Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a merger. On the losing side of Wall Street were companies that can feel pain from interest rates staying high. Homebuilders would like rates to fall in order to make mortgages cheaper to get, for example. Lennar sank 4.1%, while DR Horton dropped 2.7%.
