NEW YORK – United States stocks closed out a bumpy, holiday-shortened week with solid gains as a tepid jobs report eased concerns that the expanding economy will force the Federal Reserve to pull back on stimulus.
The US added 559,000 jobs last month, below expectations, but the unemployment rate fell, while the average hourly wage rose more than expected, according to Labour Department data.
Investors in recent weeks had become worried that the resurging economy would spur inflation, causing the Fed to taper its massive bond-buying programme or even raise borrowing rates – despite repeated assurances to the contrary from policymakers.
But, the jobs data showed that the economy still has a rocky road ahead to replace 7.6 million jobs that have not returned since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This employment report was not too hot, not too cold, obviously, and I think that the fact that we didn’t see any big hike in wages suggests that the Fed is not going to be in a hurry to accelerate any tapering debate sooner than anticipated,” said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with a gain of 0.5% at 34,756.39.
The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.9% to close at 4,229.89, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.5% to 13,814.49.
Movie theatre chain AMC Entertainment lost 6.7% a day after completing a large stock offering that raised US$587.4 billion (RM2.4 trillion) following a raucous week that saw the share price nearly double in one day amid a buying spree by retail investors.
Chipmaker Broadcom gained 2.2% after topping earnings forecasts amid a global semiconductor shortage.
Warehouse retailer Costco logged a 1% gain after reporting healthy same-store and online sales. – AFP, June 5, 2021
