S&P 500 breaks through to new bull market highJust days after worrying about falling off the fiscal cliff, investors now are seeing stocks scale new bull market heights.
Friday, the broad Standard & Poor's 500 stock index became the first of the big three U.S. indexes to cross back over its bull market closing high, set more than three months ago.
Shortly before 2 p.m. ET, the S&P poked through 1465.77, its bull market closing high on Sept 14. Although the S&P is up just 0.2% on the day, the gain comes on top of a powerful opening-year rally as Wall Street cheered the last-minute tax deal by politicians.
Seeing the stock market at new bull market highs is a major vote of confidence for investors, who just a few months ago worried that a failure by lawmakers to sign a deal could put the economy at risk of recession.
Since stocks started rallying a week agoFriday on hopes of a deal, the S&P 500 is up 4.5%. The Dow Jones industrial average is about 1% from its 2012 bull market high and the Nasdaq composite is about 2% below its. The Wilshire 5000 index also is at a new bull market high and shows the value of the U.S. stock market has risen $10.2 trillion since the March 2009 bear market low.
Stocks sold off sharply following the November elections on worries about automatic tax increases and spending cuts that would take effect on Jan. 1 unless Congress could reach a compromise. Since the recent low on Nov. 15, the S&P 500 has now gained 8.3%.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond rose to 1.93% from 1.9% Thursday and 1.7% last Friday. Gold prices fell $30, or 1.8%, to $1,645, suggesting that gold bugs don't see much of a threat of inflation in the latest employment report.
The euro is 0.1% higher against the dollar at 1.3051 while the dollar gained 0.8% against the yen at 88.16. The price of oil continued to fall, down 0.3% to $92.63 a barrel.
Wall Street stocks reacted poorly Thursday to minutes from the most recent meeting of the Federal Reserve that showed opinion was divided over how long the central bank should keep in place its program of economy-supporting bond purchases. The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all ended Thursday's session with losses.
Federal Reserve: Stocks end lower after Fed releases minutes
On Friday, market attention turned to the government's December jobs report.
Economists had forecast -- right on the money -- that employers added 155,000 jobs in December, according to a survey by FactSet. That would be slightly higher than November's 146,000, revised downward by 2,000 in today's report. The unemployment rate wa projected to remain at 7.7%.
The December employment data added some context to jobs reports released Thursday from private research firms that showed private-sector employers added a better-than-forecast 215,000 jobs in December, although weekly applications for unemployment benefits moved higher, to 372,000.
Jobs: ADP estimates 215,000 jobs created in December
In Europe, stocks ended Friday modestly higher. The FTSE 100 index in London closed up 0.7% at 6,089.84. Germany's DAX 30 index ended up 0.3% at 7,776.37 and France's CAC 40 index finished up 0.2% at 3,730.02.
In Japan, the nation's benchmark Nikkei 225 leaped 2.8% to close at 10,688.11 as the stock index, closed over the recent holiday period, was given its first opportunity to react to Tuesday's announcement of a deal over the so-called "fiscal cliff" in Washington.
A weakening yen was also a factor helping to push Japanese stocks higher. Major markets in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region declined.
The Hang Sang index in Hong Kong finished up 0.3% to 23,331.09 Friday while Singapore's STI index ended almost flat at 3,225.22.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2013/01/04/us-stocks-jobs-report/1808437/
