After Awful Jobs Report, Stock Market ... Surges

Wall Street rallied again on Friday after a terrible, unprecedented report on the US jobs market wasn’t quite as horrific as economists had forecast, per the AP. The S&P 500 rose 48 points to 2,929; the Dow rose 455 points to 24,331; and the Nasdaq rose 141 points to 9,121. All the gains were between 1% and 2%. The jobs report said the economy shed another 20.5 million jobs. While the number is a nightmare, it was slightly below the 21 million that economists told markets to brace for. More importantly, investors are betting they won’t see another report that bad again because the number of workers filing for unemployment benefits has been slowly declining the last five weeks.

Stocks around the world were already heading higher before the US jobs report came out, in part on hopes that US and China won’t restart their trade war. After the release of the report, stocks climbed even more. In another sign of receding pessimism, Treasury yields tentatively rose. “In some aspects, investors are starting to look at it as the worst is behind us,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management. “Obviously we have time to wait here and reassess as things go, as they reopen, but there’s some comfort that we’re passing through the trough.”

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