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Investing.com – U.S. stocks held onto gains Friday, despite a jump in Treasury following a stronger-than-expected jobs report ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve rate decision.
By 14:06 ET (19:06 GMT), the benchmark , the 30-stock , and the tech-heavy had all climbed by 0.3%.
Nonfarm payrolls strength downplayed
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 199,000 jobs last month after rising by 150,000 in October, according to data from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Economists had estimated that payrolls would climb by 180,000 roles.
Average hourly earnings, a key gauge of wage growth, rose at a monthly pace of 0.4% versus October, accelerating from a previous reading of 0.2% and faster than predictions of 0.3%. The unemployment rate in the world’s largest economy, meanwhile, unexpectedly ticked down to 3.7%.
The uptick in wage growth, which risks boosting inflation, muddied the optimism for rate cuts, pushing higher, though some economists were quick to downplay the strength of report attributed to the return of employers that were on strike.
“Were it not for the strike, November would have been somewhere around 170k and October would have…
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