Mid-Day Recap: Shrinking Job Losses Spur Market Gains

Buoyed by the first reversal in the unemployment rate in 15 months, markets are up almost 2% on Friday, which will give the benchmark S&P 500 its fourth consecutive weekly gain.

Just after 1:30 pm, the S&P is leading all indexes with a 1.91% advance to 1,016, while the NASDAQ is trading 1.89% higher at 2,010, and the Dow is up 1.89% to 9431. Today’s gains follows two days of small-scale sell-offs, but since Monday the Dow and S&P are up more than 2%, while the 5-day gain in the Nasdaq almost 1.00%.

The most significant data point of the month, the employment report, came in much better than forecasts as the unemployment rate fell one-tenth to 9.4%, in contrast to expectations that it would edge up to 9.7%.

Total nonfarm employment declined by 247,000 in July â€