Wall Street has clawed back losses incurred after President Donald Trump imposed global tariffs a month ago, capping the longest winning streak in two decades for US stocks.
Shares saw gains for the ninth day in a row for the first time since 2004 after a better-than-expected jobs report and rising hope of US-China trade talks.
Major US indexes were all up when the market closed on Friday – the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had both risen 1.5% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 1.4%.
The tech sector made the biggest gains, with Microsoft and Nvidia growing by more than 2%.
It came as the Department of Labor said on Friday that US employers had added 177,000 new jobs in April.
The report outpaced analysts’ predictions, although it was still a slowdown in hiring from the month beforehand. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%.
Another sign of encouragement for investors was Beijing’s announcement on Friday that it was considering an offer from Washington to hold trade talks with the US.
At 145%, China faces the highest import taxes by far.
For some analysts the jobs figures tamped down recession fears in the wake of commerce department data this week showing a contraction in the US economy for the first time in three years.
“There is nothing to complain about here,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said in a research note.
“You cannot find any evidence of a nascent recession in these figures.”
Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, also saw cause for optimism.
“The economy will weaken in the coming months but, with this underlying momentum, the US has a decent chance of averting recession if it can step back from the tariff brink in time,” she said.
But other experts said it would take time to see the full effect of Trump’s tariffs.
While the jobs report is strong, “the outlook remains very uncertain,” Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch Ratings, told the BBC on Friday.
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