Strong U.S. jobs data boosts stocks\, soothes economic fears

Strong U.S. jobs data boosts stocks, soothes economic fears

Reuters  |  NEW YORK 

By April Joyner

Equities around the globe were buoyed by the that and the will hold trade talks in on Monday and Tuesday.

In the United States, stocks got another boost as stronger-than-expected U.S. employment data soothed some concerns of slowing economic growth. That was welcome to investors after sharp declines on Thursday following Apple Inc's cut in its revenue forecast.

"As nervous as we all were yesterday on this Apple news, this does help to soften that a bit, that maybe the consumer or the average person still is more confident than we are giving them credit for," said J.J. Kinahan, at in

The strong U.S. jobs report raised questions among some market watchers about the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, which has been scrutinized in recent weeks as economic worries have mounted. However, Wall Street surged further after Fed spoke at a meeting of the and said he would not resign if asked to by U.S.

Conversely, safe-haven assets that had climbed this week as equity markets were roiled came down substantially. Treasury yields rose sharply after the release of U.S. employment data, and the dollar gained 0.6 percent against the yen. Spot gold prices, which reached a six-month peak on Thursday, dropped 0.8 percent.

In U.S. equities, the rose 681.9 points, or 3.01 percent, to 23,368.12, the S&P 500 gained 66.58 points, or 2.72 percent, to 2,514.47 and the Nasdaq Composite added 218.87 points, or 3.39 percent, to 6,682.37.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index jumped 2.67 percent, while MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 2.16 percent.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury notes last fell 32/32 in price to yield 2.6641 percent, from 2.553 percent late on Thursday.

Earlier, an announcement from China's central that it would cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves for the fifth time in the past year lifted Asian and European stocks. The move frees $116 billion for new lending as tries to reduce the risk of a sharper economic slowdown.

Japanese equity markets, which opened for their first session of the new year, were the main exception, weighed down by the sharp rise in the yen in the past few days.

The of the U.S.-trade talks boosted oil prices, with both Brent and U.S. crude futures around 4 percent higher.

(Reporting by April Joyner; Additional reporting by Virginia Furness, Swati Pande, and Chuck Mikolajczak; editing by Jon Boyle, and Dan Grebler)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Fri, January 04 2019. 22:11 IST