Stocks rise on jobs data, S&P 500 nears week-long sweep

Wall Street is rising Thursday after a report showed the U.S. job market continues to climb from the crater created by the coronavirus pandemic in the spring

NEW YORK — Wall Street is rising Thursday after a report showed the U.S. job market continues to climb from the crater created by the coronavirus pandemic in the spring.

The S&P 500 was 0.9% higher in midday trading and on pace for its fourth-straight gain. Stocks also rose across Europe and Asia, while oil prices ticked higher on hopes that a recovering economy will mean more demand.

The gains for markets faded as the morning progressed, though, after Florida reported more than 10,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases for the first time. It underlined how fragile the recovery is, and the bond market was also showing more caution than stocks as Treasury yields ticked lower.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 230 points, or 0.9%, at 25,965, as of 11:34 a.m. Eastern time, after earlier being up as many as 469 points. The Nasdaq composite was headed for another record after rising 0.8%.

U.S. employers added 4.8 million jobs to their payrolls in June, the second-straight month of job growth. Even though the unemployment rate remains very high at 11.1%, last month’s improvement was much better than economists expected.

The pandemic has made collecting data on the economy unusually difficult, which leaves economists uncertain about their numbers’ accuracy. But they say it’s clear that the job market is improving after collapsing in the spring amid widespread shutdowns. That gives investors hope that the economy can recover from its recession relatively quickly as governments relax restrictions.

Those hopes have lifted the S&P 500 to within roughly 7% of the record set in February, after an earlier nearly 34% drop when recession worries peaked.

Of course, many in the country are still experiencing economic pain, with only about a third of the 22 million jobs lost to the recession recovered so far. And worries are rising that worsening levels of infections in not just Florida but across swaths of the U.S. South and West could choke off budding economic improvements. Such concerns have held the market in check since early June following a months-long rocket ride.

Thursday’s reports on the economy also weren’t uniformly encouraging. The number of workers filing for unemployment benefits last week dipped by less than economists expected, for example. The number of workers continuing to get jobless claims was also higher than expected.

Stocks nevertheless moved higher Thursday, led by companies that would benefit most from a reopening economy.

Oil companies, raw-material producers and other companies whose profits are very closely tied to the strength of the economy had the market’s biggest gains.

Energy stocks in the S&P 500 rose 2% for the largest gain among the 11 sectors that make up the index. Noble Energy rose 6.1%, and Apache gained 4.7%.

They benefited from hopes that a recovering economy will restore some of the demand for oil that vanished in the spring as people stopped driving, airplanes were left parked in the desert and factories went idle. U.S. crude oil rose 0.7% to $40.11 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 1.2% to $42.54 per barrel.

If the S&P 500 stays higher, it will mean the index rose every day this week. Markets will be closed Friday in observance of Independence Day.

Bond investors were showing less enthusiasm, though. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note dipped to 0.67% from 0.68% late Wednesday. It tends to move with investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

Earlier on Thursday, stocks climbed across Asia. South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.4%, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong jumped 2.9% and the Nikkei 225 in Japan added 0.1%.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX returned 2.8%, France’s CAC 40 rose 2.4% and the FTSE 100 in London added 1.2%.