Stocks were rallying strongly Friday afternoon, with their best one-day gains in a month, after a positive jobs report that allayed fears of recession and showed few signs of inflation.
- The S&P 500 was up 1.12%. The Dow Jones industrials were up 1.1%. The Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 1.2%, with the NASDAQ 100 index, dominated by big tech stocks, up nearly 1.4%. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), up 2.8%, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), ahead by 1.2%, contributed a third of the Nasdaq 100's 100-point gain.
- The jobs report showed payrolls growing by 136,000 in September. But estimates for August and July were revised higher and the jobless rate hit a 50-year low.
