US close: Wall Street notches up fresh highs

US stocks advanced for a second consecutive week, notching up fresh record highs in the process, with technology issues again spearheading the charge, despite the release of a weaker than expected jobs report for the month of May.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.29% or 62.11 points to end the session at 21,206.29, as the S&P 500 gained 0.37% or 9.01 points to 2,439.07 while the Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.94% to 6,305.80.

In parallel, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury was down by five basis points - its lowest level since November - to 2.16%, with the US dollar spot index off by 0.50% to 96.72.

From a sector standpoint, the best performance was seen in: Residential REITs (2.21%), Medical suppies (1.79%) and Biotechnology (1.67%).

For the week as a whole, the S&P was 1.0% higher and the Dow Jones Industrials added 0.6%.

American firms took on 138,000 new hires last month (consensus: 185,000) and a combined 66,000 less than previously thought over the prior two months, according to the Department of Labor.

Unemployment on the other hand continued to slip lower, falling from 4.4% to 4.3%, in part as the labour force participation rate decreased.

Economists were nevertheless sanguine for the most part.

For their part, Michael Levy and Roiana Reid at Berenberg Capital Markets said: "the disappointing increase in jobs in May is a realignment between output and payroll growth, and was well overdue. The economy is on the right track with businesses optimism pointing toward continued growth in employment and expansion."

However, the pair also said that the US Federal would likely "think twice" about hiking interest rates again in September, following an expected increase in June, if the slowdown in core consumer price inflation proved more than transitory.

"Slower employment growth always begs the question of recession risks. [...] we would take it as a negative signal should employment growth continue to soften. However, slower employment growth at present could be related to the abating of post-election euphoria that could have led to a faster pace of hiring earlier this year," said analysts at Barclays Research.

Shares in Hovnanian Enterprises skidded 6% lower despite reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings per share and revenues.

Lululemon Athletica on the other hand was sharply higher, having posted adjusted first quarter earnings per share of 32 cents (consensus: 28 cents) on sales of $520.3m (consensus: $514.0m).

Dow Jones - Risers

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $71.76 2.37%
Boeing Co. (BA) $190.23 1.55%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $155.45 1.48%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $52.98 1.30%
3M Co. (MMM) $206.70 1.15%
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) $130.08 1.01%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $153.74 0.89%
Visa Inc. (V) $96.05 0.68%
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. (DD) $80.51 0.59%
General Electric Co. (GE) $27.88 0.58%