Investing.com – The Dow rose again on Friday, led by energy and data showing the U.S. economy created more jobs than expected last month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.15%, the S&P 500 gained 0.46%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.59%. It was the third straight gain for the Dow and fourth-straight for the S&P 500.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by 182,000, topping expectations for a 175,000 gain, while average hourly earnings, an important number to gauge inflation, slowed to 0.1% from 0.4% year over year in March.
The mixed jobs report raised expectations that the Federal Reserve will stick with its wait-and-see approach on whether to boost interest rates, lifting sentiment on risk assets.
President Donald Trump called on the Federal Reserve to take more drastic measures and cut rates.
“I think they should drop rates,” Trump told reporters. “I think they really slowed us down. There’s no inflation.”
The Fed's base federal funds rate is 2.25% to 2.5%.
Sentiment on trade, meanwhile, remained positive with the U.S. and China meeting next week by video conference in a bid to reach a detente on trade, White House adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday.
The U.S. has slapped tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, about half the value of U.S. imports from the country. China has retaliated with tariffs on $110 billion worth of American exports.
Beyond trade, energy stocks rallied, underpinning the broader market, as oil prices surged to five-month highs on hopes escalating conflict in Libya may disrupt oil supplies in the region.
In the other company news, LYFT (NASDAQ:LYFT) clawed back some losses following its early-week massacre thanks to an upbeat assessment from Citron Research, citing optimism in the ride share market.
"The principal of Citron has been an investor in Lyft for the past two years and we have increased our position in the open market," the investment research firm said. "The entire ride share market in the US only accounts for 1% of miles traveled today... we have only just begun," Citron said.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) slipped lower in aftermarket hours as the aircraft maker said it would cut its 737 Max production by almost a fifth, beginning in mid-April. This comes as the company continues efforts to finalize a software update for its anti-stall software on the 737 Max following two deadly crashes in recent months. The shares were off 1.8% after hours, following a 1% decline in regular trading. The shares are down more than 13% since peaking at $446.01 on March 1.
The dour update from Boeing arrived after UBS cut their price target on the aircraft maker's stock to $500 from $525, citing concerns about a potential drop in earnings estimates.
"We expect the next few weeks could be a bit more choppy than the last few weeks as the company will report earnings on April 24th and potentially need to make risk-mitigating production decisions (which would drive negative revisions). The next piece of good news for the stock is the acceptance of the proposed solution Boeing is offering to the MCAS reliability and safety, though we moved our expectation for the receipt of that until after 1Q earnings," UBS said.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Apache (NYSE:APA), EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG) and Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Dow (NYSE:DOW), Capri Holdings (NYSE:CPRI) and Kohls (NYSE:KSS) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.