US stocks rise on strong September jobs report
Saturday, 4 October 2014
NEW YORK, Oct 3 (AFP): Wall Street stocks Friday moved higher after the Labor Department reported the US economy gained a strong 248,000 jobs in September and that unemployment fell to a six-year low.
About 30 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 16,959.89, up 158.84 points (0.95 per cent).
The broad-based S&P 500 jumped 18.09 (0.93 per cent) at 1,964.26, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 44.06 (0.99 per cent) to 4,474.26.
The September jobs report was a welcome rebound after August's worrisome slump, taking the monthly job creation average so far this year to 227,000 and pushing the jobless rate down to 5.9 per cent.
Dow member JPMorgan Chase gained 0.6 per cent following its disclosure that a data breach revealed in August had compromised 76 million household customers and seven million businesses.
However, the bank said there was no evidence that critical account information such as account numbers, user identities or social security numbers were stolen by the hackers.
Shares of cybersecurity firms advanced: Palo Alto Networks (+6.3 per cent), Proofpoint (+4.4 per cent) and Qualys (3.0 per cent).
Salix Pharmaceuticals gained 4.9 per cent as it announced it was terminating a deal with Cosmo Pharmaceuticals to combine Salix into a subsidiary of Italy-based Cosmo Pharmaceuticals.
But the deal has been challenged by new US policies designed to discourage inversion deals, in which US companies merge with foreign businesses to relocate in a lower tax address.