1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks soar after jobs report

U.S. stocks surged with global shares on Friday, as investors cheered over a jobs report that indicated signs of economic growth.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked 267.05 points, or 1.49 percent, to 18,191.11. The S&P 500 jumped 28.10 points, or 1.35 percent, to 2,116.10. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 58.00 points, or 1.17 percent, to 5,003.55.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.4 percent, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday.

In April, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 3 cents to 24.87 U.S. dollars. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 2.2 percent.

"Job growth has slowed in the past several months, which really shouldn't surprise anyone considering the average rate of GDP growth in the last two quarters was 1.2 percent," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

"Post report, bond yields are down and equity futures are up because the headline was weaker than expected, and especially weaker than the Wall Street consensus. That means the Fed's case for rate hikes is diminished," he added.

Investor sentiment was also buoyed by global stock markets' broad-based surges. European shares closed sharply higher on Friday after a surprisingly market-friendly U.K. election outcome by the center-right Conservative party, with the British benchmark FTSE 100 Index up 2.32 percent.

British Conservative Party won the 2015 general election with 331 seats of the House of Commons on Friday, a slender majority.

Meanwhile, leaders of Britain's three parties, including the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats Party and the UK Independence Party, Friday announced their resignation as the parties' leaders after defeats in the election.

In Asia, Chinese equities rebounded strongly on Friday after a three-day diving streak with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index increasing 2.28 percent.

For the week, the three major indices ended mixed after volatile trading, with the Dow and the S&P 500 up 0.9 percent and 0.4 percent respectively, while the Nasdaq down less than 0.1 percent. Endite