S&P 500 Up Despite Poor Jobs Report

U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, with Wall Street clearing weekly losses and posting its best two-day gain in four months, as investors decided the nonfarm payrolls report wasn’t so terrible after all.

The government reported the creation of 113,000 jobs in January versus expectations of 185,000. The jobless rate fell to 6.6 percent versus an expectation of 6.7 percent.

The report showed increased employment in construction, and declines in retail and government work.

Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report follows terrible data in December, which was revised just a bit, up 1,000 from the previous estimate of 74,000.

Stock futures initially fell on the report, but recovered within minutes.

Lousy data on the labor market aside, U.S. economic momentum has been picking, Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher told CNBC on Friday. The hawkish Fisher, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, said the Fed was unlikely to sway the Fed from continuing to scale back its monthly asset purchases.

European markets finished higher. Asian markets ended the week with gains. The Nikkei in Japan was a standout performer, advancing by 2.2% Friday. The index is on the rebound after losing more than 11% since the beginning of 2014.

News Sources:  CNBC and CNN Money

The portfolio:

Another great day for the portfolio.  I was very surprised watching how quickly the futures dipped after the release of the jobs report only to recover and grow even stronger a few minutes later, very bizarre.

Coming out of PRLB on Monday due to its earning release on Tuesday morning.

Bring on the bulls!

John

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