U.S. equities and stock exchange traded funds bounced Friday on a better-than-expected pick up in U.S. employment and a surge in technology sector shares.
The S&P 500 Index, along with related funds including the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY), iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:IVV) and Vanguard 500 Index (NYSEARCA:VOO), were 0.7% higher Friday.
Technology shares in the S&P 500 were among the best performers, jumping 1.5% Friday.
U.S. markets strengthened after the labor Department revealed non-farm payrolls increased by 222,000 last month, compared to economists’ expectations of a 179,000 gain, reports Tanya Agrawal for Reuters.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% form a 16-year low of 4.3%, but the increase was attributed to more people looking for work, a signal of confidence in the labor market.
“We’re looking at now four of first six months of the year with 200,000 jobs or more and this is a nice solid report, so we can look forward to earnings season coming up,” Ryan Detrick, Senior Market Strategist for LPL Financial, told Reuters. “The one potential slight concern was the average wages didn’t raise quite so much as some of those early estimates. But that falls in with some of the inflation data we’ve been seeing.”
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Some believed that the increased number of people looking for jobs weighed on wage growth.
The improving employment numbers are also strengthening the argument for further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. For instance, Janus Henderson’s Bill Gross told Bloomberg that he expects the central bank to go through with a third increase this year, likely in December.
“What this should do is to keep the Fed for another rate hike,” Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial Inc., told Bloomberg. “The market has absorbed the fact finally that Janet Yellen is seemingly intent on moving toward a neutral rate. If this were a weak number, the market could be down because again the notion would be that she’s raising rates in an environment in which the economy is pulling back.”
Options traders are now betting on a 50.9% chance the Fed will hike interest rates at its December meeting.
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