US Stock Markets Today: S&P 500, Dow Jones Rise After November Jobs Reading

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones edged higher on Friday as November jobs data came in at 227,000, slightly better than Dow Jones estimate.

The S&P 500 rose over 0.27%, whereas the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and Dow rose 0.18%.

The stocks closed lower on Thursday, retreating from the record high in the previous session.

In the early minutes of trading, only two of the 11 sectoral indices were trading in red. Consumer and industrial sectors were leading the surge while energy and utility sectors were in the negative.

"Markets will react short term over small pieces of data, but we still feel the trends are stable enough for the underlying job market," Bryon Anderson at Laffer Tengler Investments told Bloomberg.

Among major companies, Salesforce Inc., Home Depot Inc., and Accenture PLC logged gains, whereas UnitedHealth Group Inc. slipped in early trade.

As the US market opened, spot gold fell 0.11% to $2,628.87 an ounce. Crude oil prices rose, with Brent trading 0.96% lower at $71.40 per barrel.

The US job market showed signs of recovery last month, bouncing back from the storm and strike disruptions that impacted October. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 227,000 in November, following an upwardly revised 36,000 increases in October, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Friday.

“Data this morning was a Thanksgiving buffet with payrolls spot on, revisions positive, but unemployment ticking higher despite the participation rate falling. This print doesn’t kill the holiday spirit and the Fed remains on track to deliver a cut in December,” Lindsay Rosner at Goldman Sachs Asset Management told Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg Dollar Index was little changed, with the British Pound rose 0.3% to $1.0603, while the Japanese yen was unchanged at 150.10 per dollar.

Bitcoin, the largest traded cryptocurrency, fell 0.3% to $98,759.86.