Investing.com – U.S. stocks closed at record highs led by a surge in tech stocks after Apple reported quarterly earnings that topped expectations while upbeat services and orders data offset a soft October jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 23,525.97. The S&P 500 closed 0.27% higher while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6764.44, up 0.74%.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed at record highs after shares of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 2% following an earnings report late Thursday that beat on both the top and bottom line. Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), meanwhile, surged 12% on reports it may be acquired by Broadcom.
On the economic data front, investors mulled over a mixed bag of data as the U.S. economy created fewer jobs than expected while order and services sector data topped expectations.
ISM nonmanufacturing data for October showed an uptick to 60.1, beating expectations of 58.5. That was the highest reading for the service sector index since 2005.
The upbeat nonmanufacturing report raised investor expectations of bullish U.S. economic growth, spurring a rebound on the dollar, which pressured gold prices to sink to session lows.
The U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs in October, the Department of Labor said Friday, that missed economists’ estimates for 310,000 new jobs.
The jobless rate remained steady at 4.2% while average hourly earnings was sluggish with growth roughly flat for the month.
'Bulls and Bears' on Wall Street
The top Dow gainers for the session: Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) up 2.6%, Merck (NYSE:MRK) up 1.2% and Nike (NYSE:NKE) up 1.1%
Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC), down 1.6%, DowDuPont Inc (NYSE:DWDP) down 1.2% and International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) down 1.2%, were among the worst Dow performers of the session.