Thursday’s Stock Market Open: US Equities Jump On Strong June Jobs Report

Update: 12:05 p.m. EDT:

U.S. stocks remained in the black as of Thursday noon, but gave back some earlier gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 208.73 points to 25,943.70, while the S&P 500 rose 26.04 points to 3,141.90 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 101.1 points to 10,255.72.

In Europe markets finished higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 1.34%, while France’s CAC-40 gained 2.49% and Germany’s DAX jumped 2.84%.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday that factory orders jumped by 8% in May after falling 13.5% in April. However, on a year-over-year basis, factory orders dropped 10.3% in May.

Original story:

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday on a surprisingly strong June jobs data, although initial jobless claims climbed last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 359.12 points to 26,094.09, while the S&P 500 rose 37.16 points to 3,153.02 and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 113.66 points to 10,268.29.

The Labor Department said on Thursday that nonfarm payrolls surged by 4.8 million in June – much higher than expected -- and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% as businesses in the U.S. continued to reopen.

The Labor Department also said 1.427 million people filed initial jobless claims last week – higher than expected. The number of continuing claims – that is, those who are receiving unemployment benefits for consecutive weeks -- rose to 19.29 million.

Chris Lu, a former Obama White House official, commented the jobs report should be taken in context.

“Data is from mid-June as states were reopening,” he tweeted. “More than 40% of country is now reversing/pausing reopening. An additional 1.5 million people are filing for unemployment every week. Way too early for any victory lap.”

Lu added: “1.43 million filed for unemployment last week [plus] 840,000 gig workers. 31.5 million people are receiving some kind of unemployment benefit (that's 900,000 more from the week before). This reflects more recent economic condition than monthly jobs report.”

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard has warned that rising bankruptcies due to the coronavirus pandemic might lead to a financial crisis,

“Without more granular risk management on the part of the health policy, we could get a wave of substantial bankruptcies and [that] could feed into a financial crisis,” Bullard said. “It’s probably prudent to keep our lending facilities in place for now, even though it’s true that liquidity has improved dramatically in financial markets… With all these programs, the idea is to make sure the markets don’t freeze up entirely because that’s what gets you into a financial crisis when traders won’t trade the asset at any price.”

Overnight in Asia markets finished higher, as China’s Shanghai Composite index rose 2.13%; Japan’s Nikkei-225 edged up 0.11%; and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng exchange climbed 2.85%.

In Europe markets traded higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 rose 1.4%, while France’s CAC-40 gained 2.24% and Germany’s DAX jumped 2.47%.

Crude oil futures gained 1.03% at $40.23 per barrel, Brent crude rose 1.19% at $41.91. Gold futures fell 0.25%.

The euro rose 0.16% at $1.1271 while the pound sterling gained 0.16% at $1.2495.