Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report capped a five-day rally as the unemployment rate fell below 8% to the lowest level since President Obama took office.
The S&P 500 was on track for a weekly gain of 1.8% in afternoon trading Friday as the blue-chip benchmark climbed above the highest closing level since 2007. Meanwhile, the Dow added 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.2%.
“The September number was pretty close to being spot on consensus and it came with an upwards revision to the August number. The market reaction is positive on a report that’s solid even if it’s unspectacular,” Janney Montgomery Scott strategist Mark Luschini told Bloomberg News.
The U.S. economy added 114,000 jobs in September while the unemployment rate fell to 7.8%.
European stock ETFs were the big winners this week with Greece, Italy and Spain pacing the advancers.