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U.S. stocks tick up on strong jobs report

Xinhua, February 4, 2017 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks rose Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index setting a new closing record, as Wall Street cheered over the country's better-than-expected jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 186.55 points, or 0.94 percent, to 20,071.46. The S&P 500 added 16.57 points, or 0.73 percent, to 2,297.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 30.57 points, or 0.54 percent, to 5,666.77.

U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 227,000 in January, well above market consensus of 175,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate was little changed at 4.8 percent.

In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 3 cents to 26.00 U.S. dollars, following a 6-cent increase in December. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent.

"The fourth quarter's 148k average job growth was the weakest since the 90k average in the second quarter of 2012. January' s rebound is likely the first of several above-trend gains," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

Meanwhile, the Non-Manufacturing Index, which measures activity in the U.S. service sector, registered 56.5 percent in January, missing market expectations of 57.0, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in its monthly survey Friday.

In corporate news, shares of Amazon dropped 3.54 percent to 810.20 dollars apiece Friday, after the e-commerce giant delivered quarterly earnings above estimates but revenues shy of forecasts.

Shares of Visa surged 4.59 percent to 86.08 dollars apiece Friday following the release of the credit-card company's better-than-expected quarterly results.

The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the fourth quarter of 2016 are expected to rise 7.9 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 4.2 percent.

For the week, the blue-chip Dow edged down 0.1 percent, while both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rose 0.1 percent. Enditem