Jobless report bad, but stocks close up
NEW YORK (AP) — Not even grisly job losses could get in the stock market’s way Friday.
The Dow Jones industrial average clawed higher to end above 8,000 for the first time in nearly two months, and logged an impressive fourth straight week of gains.
The last time the Dow rose for four consecutive weeks was between September and October of 2007 — when the index reached its all-time high above 14,000.
The Labor Department’s March unemployment report was a big hurdle for the market. The numbers were certainly grim, but not terrible enough to derail an emerging sense of optimism over the past four months that the economy may be beginning to right itself.
Tom Phillips, president of TS Phillips Investments in Oklahoma City, said the improved tone is helping traders react more moderately to bad news than they might have even a month ago.
“If the expectation was for truly horrendous numbers and they’re only ugly, that’s a good thing,” he said.
Employers slashed a net total of 663,000 jobs last month, only slightly worse than the 654,000 economists expected. The employment rate jumped to 8.5 percent, its highest level since late 1983, when the economy was starting to emerge from a deep recession.
The economy has shed a total of 5.1 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Nearly two-thirds of the losses have come in the last five months.
While many investors are looking ahead to an eventual recovery, others say Wall Street might be just as short-sighted now as it was when it was panicking. Potential pitfalls lie ahead not just for the job market, but also in corporate earnings reports and outlooks that start pouring in next week.
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow climbed 39.51, or 0.5 percent, to 8,017.59. That is the index’s highest close since Feb. 9, when the index ended at 8,270.87. A month later, the index sank to a nearly 12-year low of 6,547.05, but it’s now 22.5 percent above that trough.
The rally that began in March has been the Dow’s biggest four-week advance since 1933.