Wall: With ‘defense’, the Nasdaq maintained its gains for the week, at +4.6%

Wall Street’s main indexes closed on mixed signs and stabilizing trends on Friday, in a session dominated by volatility and sign switching, with investors getting off to a heady start after today’s strong U.S. jobs data and while in the foreground are concerns about an impending economic recession.

Gradually, however, the US market digested the employment data against fears that the US Federal Reserve will continue aggressive rate hikes to tame high inflation. Thus, the indices stabilized at their gains from Thursday and comfortably maintained their gains for the week. The S&P 500 snapped a 4-day winning streak, but along with the Nasdaq ended its second straight week of gains.

Employment data showed that the US economy continued to add new jobs in Juneat a pace that exceeded analysts’ estimates, keeping the unemployment rate near a 50-year low and allaying concerns that aggressive US interest rate hikes will also hit employment.

According to the US Department of Labor, the economy added another 372,000 jobs in June, beating analysts’ estimates of 265,000 positions in a Bloomberg poll. The unemployment rate was held at 3.6%, confirming estimates. At the same time, the ministry revised the May data to 384,000 jobs.

The resilience of the labor market contrasts with the broader picture of the economy showing signs of slowing after aggressive US interest rate hikes and amid an unprecedented inflation rally that has hit demand. However, the strong performance of the labor market seems to give the Federal Reserve the green light to continue raising interest rates in the coming months in order to combat inflation.

“The labor market is a slow-moving indicator of the real state of the economy,” Matt Stucky, portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management, said in an interview. “The risk of a mild recession is still there,” he added.

“Job growth in June slowed slightly from the previous month, but was much better than expected,” JP Morgan analyst David Kelly said in a note.

“Today’s report does not eliminate the risk of the economy going into recession,” he added. “However, with demand for labor hovering near record highs, an eventual recession could be relatively mild on workers.”

“If you’re looking for a job, the news is very good, if you’re looking to invest, the numbers are not market-friendly because it allows the Fed to continue raising interest rates,” said Steve Sosnick, an analyst at Interactive Brokers.

In favor of increasing interest rates by 75 bp. the next meeting was attended today by the president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve, Raphael Bostic. “We can move 75 bps into the next session without seeing prolonged damage to the economy,” he said in an interview with CNBC. Commenting on them strong labor market data announced earlier today Bostic noted that “they confirm that the economy is strong, there’s still a lot of momentum in the labor market, and that’s a positive thing.”

In the bond market, the 10 years old of the US strengthened by 8 basis points to 3.08%, while the dollar it lost 0.1% but recorded an increase of about 1.8% on the week.

Indicators – Statistics

On the dashboard, the industrial index Dow Jones suffered minor losses 0.15% or 46 units at 31,338.15the widest S&P 500 retreated against 0.08% at 3,899.38 unitswhile the tech-weighted Nasdaq added 0.12% at 11,635,31 units.

In week all three indexes closed in positive territory, with the Dow gaining 0.8%, the S&P 500 adding 1.9% and the Nasdaq the big gainer with a 4.6% jump.

From the 30th shares that make up the industrial index, 8 registered a positive sign and 22 a negative one. At the top of the index was UnitedHealth Group with a rise of 0.83%, although intra-session it reached up to +2.3%. On the other hand, Wallgreens Boots lost 1.73%, Dow Inc closed at -1.72%, followed by Walt Disney at -1.61%, while 3M’s losses barely exceeded 1%.

Significant losses for Twitter at -5.1% after a Washington Post report that left an open window for Elon Musk to back out of the venture to privatize the company.

S&P 500 losers include Caesars Entertainment and Expedia Group, which lost 4.67% and 1.89%, respectively. Paypal also fell by 2.1%, while significant gains were recorded by McKesson Corporation which added 3.14% and Centene Inc at +3.16%.