Investing.com – The S&P 500 surged on Friday as the economy created more jobs than expected and consumer discretionaries racked up gains, led by Amazon.com.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.75%, the S&P 500 added 0.96%, coming within two tenths of a point of breaking its closing high, set on Tuesday.
The Nasdaq Composite, however, jumped 1.58% to a fresh all-time closing high, The Nasdaq 100 Index also ended with a new closing high.
The U.S. economy created 263,000 jobs in April, beating expectations for a 181,000 gain, according to estimates from Investing.com, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6%. The unemployment was the lowest since December 1969, the Labor Department said.
But wage gains missed economist expectations and will likely keep a lid on the pace of inflation. In the wake of the weaker wage growth, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester told CNBC on Friday said that she sees no need to adjust the central bank’s monetary policy.
Consumer discretionary stocks, led the rally in the broader market, thanks to 3% rise in Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) as investors seemingly took their cue from Warren Buffet, who reportedly said that one his managers at Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) had been buying the stock. Amazon finished the week with a 0.61% gain.
Newell Brands (NASDAQ:NWL) also fired up consumer discretionaries, surging more than 13% after delivering first-quarter results that beat estimates from Investing.com.
But Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) took some of gloss of the rally in consumers discretionary, falling 0.9%, after its mixed first-quarter results and lower-than-expected occupancy rate in its affiliated hotels prompted traders to dump the stock.
In industrials, U.S. Steel (NYSE:X) jumped more than 17% thanks to quarterly results that topped expectations on both the top and bottom lines.
In the wake of mixed quarterly results, some of the more bullish analysts on Wall Street have not shied away from raising their outlook on the broader market.
Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors, raised his S&P 500 year-end target to 3,125 from 2,925. The upgrade reflects the first-quarter earnings “recession,” which has not been as bad as feared, Lee added. Lee's target is 6.1% above Friday's close and would mean a yearly gain of nearly 25%. The S&P 500 is up 17.5% so far this year.
Earnings aside, rising energy stocks also propped up the broader market, as U,S, oil prices rose sharply to end a torrid week, in which they fell 2.15.%.
In other company news, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock accelerated about 4.5% as the electric automaker ramped up the size of its latest sale of stock to 3.1 million shares from the 2.7 million shares previously expected to be sold in the offering, with CEO Elon Musk committing to buy an additional $15 million in shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Top S&P 500 Gainers and Losers Today:
Newell Brands (NASDAQ:NWL), Flowserve (NYSE:FLS) and Monster Beverage (NASDAQ:MNST) were among the top S&P 500 gainers for the session.
Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH), Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) and Fortinet Inc (NASDAQ:FTNT) were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.