Stocks mostly rise after jobs report whopper, tech earnings

By Stock News On Feb 2, 2024 8 0

Stocks pointed mostly upward Friday after a blowout January jobs report served up the last major data point in a jam-packed week of market-moving events.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slipped 0.2%, or 70 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained almost 1%.

Investors are nearing the end of a momentous week. As Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer reports, Friday’s highlight was the jobs report, which blew past Wall Street expectations as the economy added 353,000 jobs in January. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7%.

The labor market has remained resilient in the face of a rate-hiking campaign from the Federal Reserve, but other data this week had shown signs of softening. Though the Jerome Powell-sparked sell-off of just two days ago is almost a mere footnote by now, Friday’s jobs report could once again shift expectations on the Fed’s rate path, especially as Powell suggested that a strong labor market is actually a good sign.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were still basking in the glow of strong earnings reports from tech giants Amazon (AMZN) and Meta (META) on Thursday. As Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban writes, they delivered the goods where Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) had fallen short earlier in the week. Meta surged 20% in morning trading, while Amazon popped 6%.

Apple (AAPL) also looks to have disappointed, despite an earnings beat Thursday, because of warning signs about its China business. Apple fell more than 1% during the morning session.

Live5 updates

Fri, February 2, 2024 at 10:22 AM EST

Stocks trending in morning trading

Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page during morning trading on Friday:

Meta (META): Shares of the social media platform surged Friday morning, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted a blockbuster quarter. In a surprise move the company also announced a new dividend, paying 50 cents per share to investors for the first time. The tech giant also boosted its stock buyback program by $50 billion.

Amazon (AMZN): The e-commerce behemoth also enjoyed a standout quarter. Investors drove the stock up 6% Friday after the company reported fourth quarter results that topped expectations on both the top and bottom lines. The upper range of Amazon’s outlook for the current quarter also topped expectations. Amazon grew its ads business more than 25%

Apple (AAPL): Shares of the iPhone maker fell 1.6% despite posting better than expected earnings in its first quarter Thursday. But sales in China, one of its most important markets fell year-over-year.

AbbVie (ABBV): The pharmaceutical company rose nearly 3% Friday morning after surpassing revenue expectations for its fiscal fourth quarter. The company also raised its sales outlook for two of its biggest immunology drugs.
Fri, February 2, 2024 at 9:38 AM EST

Stocks mostly positive in morning trading

Wall Street hesitated during morning trading on Friday, with the major indexes little changed. Investors digested a blockbuster jobs report that nearly doubled expected figures while parsing standout earnings from Tech giants Meta (META) and Amazon (AMZN).

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slipped 0.4%, or 150 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.5%.
Fri, February 2, 2024 at 8:59 AM EST

The COVID labor market recovery is now complete. Again.

Back in 2022, total US employment topped pre-COVID levels, marking one of the quickest rises from trough to peak of any post-recession rebound.

On Friday, the news got even better.

Joseph Politano, who writes the Apricitas Economics newsletter, noted on X that every major sector of the US economy has now fully recovered from losses seen during the pandemic.

With 11,000 jobs added to the Leisure & Hospitality sector in January, the final piece of this recovery puzzle was put into place.

Source: Apricitas Economics
Fri, February 2, 2024 at 8:46 AM EST

The US labor market continues to impress

The US economy added 353,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in January, almost double the 185,000 expected by economists and exceeding the upwardly-revised December figures that showed there were 333,000 jobs added to the economy in the final month of 2023.

Wages also topped estimates, with average hourly earnings rising 0.6% over last month and 4.6% over last year.

Revisions to November and December’s jobs reports brought the number of new roles created during those months up by 126,000.

And the benchmark revisions — which some had thought could bring a notable downward skew to last year’s job gains — were modest, showing there were 187,000 fewer jobs added to the economy throughout the year than previously announced.

After Powell on Wednesday suggested a rate cut in March was not the Federal Reserve’s base case, Friday’s data makes it seem even more unlikely that view gets changed over the next six weeks.
Fri, February 2, 2024 at 7:31 AM EST

Tech earnings and jobs in focus

Good Friday morning!

We are nearing the end of a jam-packed week for markets and the economy with one final main event: the January jobs report. Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer will have all the numbers and reaction starting at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Also in focus will be the aftermath of the last significant round of Big Tech earnings this quarter. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was set to pop more than 1% as Meta and Amazon surged. But Apple was setting up for a decline after warning about its China business.