The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied over 600 points as job growth surged to 312,000 during the month of December, handily beating economists’ expectations of 176,000 nonfarm payrolls added. The data caps off what’s been a rough start for the capital markets in 2019 amid global growth concerns.
“The far bigger than expected 312,000 jump in non-farm payrolls in December would seem to make a mockery of market fears of an impending recession,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. He added that the report “suggests the US economy still has considerable forward momentum.”
In addition to jobs added, wages grew 3.2 percent from the previous year and 0.4 percent higher than November.
“We created jobs across the board; I don’t think most of it was seasonal,” said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. “But the most interesting thing on this report was the amount of people who left their jobs voluntarily. I think that’s a really good consumer-confidence measure.”
“As much as we all got nervous about Apple yesterday … this puts a counter to that,” he added.
Tech Rebounds
Tech rebounded after falling earlier this week as shares of iPhone maker Apple declined on weaker first quarter earnings guidance. Two exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the largest capital Apple allocations–Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEArca: XLK) and Vanguard Information Technology ETF (NYSEArca: VGT) were up over 3 percent.