Stocks nudged higher on Friday, headed for a reprieve from losses as jittery investors digested the crucial monthly jobs report and kept one eye on surging oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) put on roughly 0.1%, or 20 points, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) added 0.3% on the heels of its worst single-day fall since February. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.4%.
As Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer reported, the US labor market continued to impress in March. Employers added 303,000 jobs, much more than economists expected, while the unemployment rate ticked back down to 3.8%. Wage growth also met expectations.
The major gauges slumped on Thursday as oil prices hit their highest levels in six months, spurring worries about a boost to inflation, and a panoply of Federal Reserve speakers rattled faith in an interest-rate cut coming any time soon.
Nerves in the market…
