Stocks - Wall Street Flies High on Fed Patience, Job Gains
Investing.com - After a double dose of dispiriting news in the previous session, the market bounced back sharply Friday on a trifecta of positives: Powell, jobs and China.
The Dow rose 3.29%, more than 746 points, more than recouping its losses from the day before.
The S&P 500 jumped 3.41% and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 4.26%.
First, futures rallied on new that China and the United States would hold trade talks in Beijing next week, easing some of the worries sparked by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) about damage to profits from tariffs.
Then the market opened much higher following a better-than-expected jobs report that showed a gain of 312,000 nonfarm payrolls in December.
And shortly after trading began, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell revved up buyers by saying the FOMC was prepared to be “patient” on monetary policy and would consider changing its balance sheet plans if warranted.
"When you get such a strong jobs report and a Fed chairman saying he's patient and flexible it sends a message to the markets that we're moving in the right direction," said Robert Pavlik, chief investment strategist, senior portfolio manager at SlateStone Wealth.
"We're not out of the woods yet," Pavlik added. "But it's the first time (Powell has) said anything that's dovish enough for the markets' liking."
Among active stocks, Apple recovered some its losses from the previous day, rising 4.3%.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) all rose more than 4%.
And Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) soared 9.7%, capping a stellar week that saw its shares up about 16%.
Trade-sensitive stocks also enjoyed gains, with Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), 3M (NYSE:MMM) and Boeing (NYSE:BA) all higher.
And video game retailer GameStop (NYSE:GME) soared nearly 18% on a report that private equity firms were interested in taking over the company.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.
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