Dow Jumps Over 400 Points; US Adds 175,000 Jobs In April

U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index surging over 400 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 1.17% to 38,673.45 while the NASDAQ rose 1.76% to 16,120.20. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.04% to 5,116.83.

Check This Out: Wall Street’s Most Accurate Analysts’ Views On 3 Tech & Telecom Stocks Delivering High-Dividend Yields

Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose by 2.5% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, energy shares fell by 0.6%.

Top Headline

U.S. employers added 175,000 nonfarm payrolls in April, marking a reduction from the upwardly revised 315,000 reading in March and missing the expected 238,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The unemployment rate went from 3.8% to 3.9%, more than the expected 3.8%. Average hourly earnings edged down from 4.1% to 3.9% compared to April 2023, falling more than the expected dip to 4%.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Safe & Green Holdings Corp. SGBX shares shot up 70% to $5.03 after the company announced its SG Echo subsidiary is preparing to deliver its first sustainable modular unit to a prominent quick-service restaurant customer in the Pacific Northwest.
• Shares of Vaxxinity, Inc. VAXX got a boost, surging 33% to $0.1377 after falling 9% on Thursday. Vaxxinity recently announced its intention to voluntarily delist and deregister its Class A common stock.
• WideOpenWest, Inc. WOW shares were also up, gaining 29% to $4.90 after the company received an unsolicited non-binding preliminary proposal from DigitalBridge Investments and various Crestview entities to purchase all of the outstanding shares of WOW! that Crestview does not currently own for $4.80 per share in cash.

Equities Trading DOWN

• AEON Biopharma, Inc. AEON shares dropped 51% to $1.64 after the company announced that the preliminary top-line results from its interim analysis of its Phase 2 trial with ABP-450 did not meet its primary endpoint.
• Shares of Sprout Social, Inc. SPT were down 30% to $33.67 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter revenue results on Thursday.
• Marin Software Incorporated MRIN was down, falling 19% to $2.5399 after the company reported a year-over-year decrease on first-quarter revenue results.

Also Check This Out: Top 2 Consumer Stocks That May Plunge This Quarter

Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $79.38 while gold traded down 0.1% at $2,306.70.

Silver traded down 0.5% to $26.685 on Friday, while copper rose 1.2% to $4.5370.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.4%, Germany's DAX rose 0.5% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.6%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index gained 0.1%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 0.5%.

The unemployment rate in the eurozone came in at a record low level of 6.5% in March. The S&P Global UK services PMI rose to 55 in April from 53.1 a month ago. France's government budget deficit shrank to EUR 52.78 billion in January-March 2024 compared to EUR 54.72 billion in the year-ago period, while France's industrial production declined 0.3% month-over-month in March.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumping 1.48% and S&P BSE Sensex falling 0.98%.

Retail sales in Hong Kong fell 8.6% year-over-year in March versus a 0.5% gain in the prior month..      

Economics

• U.S. employers added 175,000 nonfarm payrolls in April, marking a reduction from the upwardly revised 315,000 reading in March and missing the expected 238,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
• The unemployment rate went from 3.8% to 3.9%, more than the expected 3.8%. Average hourly earnings edged down from 4.1% to 3.9% compared to April 2023, falling more than the expected dip to 4%.

Now Read This: Apple, Hershey And 3 Stocks To Watch Heading Into Friday</em></a>