US open: Stocks sharply higher following NFP data

dl wall street st new york city nyc nyse stock exchange ny dow jones nasdaq sp finance us usa united states of america — Wall StreetSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks were firmly in the green early on Friday as market participants digested some key jobs data.

As of 1610 BST, the Dow Jones Jones Industrial Average was up 0.85% at 38,550.46, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.87% to 5,108.17 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 1.67% firmer at 16,105.03.

The Dow opened 324.80 points higher on Friday, putting the blue chip on track to match yesterday's gains.

Friday's primary focus was April's nonfarm payrolls report, which revealed hiring slowed noticeably more than expected in April, alongside lower-than-expected wage growth. According to the Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, non-farm payrolls increased by 175,000 last month. Economists had pencilled-in an increase of 243,000, after March's rise of 315,000.

Average hourly earnings also rose by less than expected last month, increasing by 0.2% over the month (consensus: 0.3%), whilst the length of the average workweek dipped from 34.4 hours to 34.3. Year-on-year the annual rate of increase in average hourly earnings dipped from 4.1% to 3.9%.

Elsewhere on the macro front, services activity in the States shrank unexpectedly at the start of spring, marking the first contraction since December 2022. The Institute for Supply Management's services sector Purchasing Managers' Index dipped from a reading of 51.4 for March to 49.4 in April. Economists had forecast an improvement to 52.0.

In the corporate space, Apple traded higher in after the tech behemoth announced a $110.0bn share buyback programme and beat on both the top and bottom lines, while Amgen reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue numbers, and Cloudflare shares headed south after issuing weak revenue guidance for the year as a whole.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Amgen Inc. (AMGN) $312.00 12.07%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $184.74 6.77%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $342.67 2.13%
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) $405.80 2.00%
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (WBA) $17.82 1.63%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $275.65 1.29%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $437.64 1.17%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $30.86 1.16%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $47.02 0.49%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $165.33 0.39%