Although the unemployment rate did tick higher in July (from 8.2% to 8.3%), investors viewed the overall news as a positive and pushed stocks to a fourth week of gains.
-Bob Doll, Senior Advisor, BlackRock
August 9, 2012
Stocks struggled for most of last week until a stronger-than-expected July payrolls report was released on Friday. The data showed that 163,000 jobs were created for the month, significantly higher than the less-than-100,000 that was expected. Although the unemployment rate did tick higher in July (from 8.2% to 8.3%), investors viewed the overall news as a positive and pushed stocks to a fourth week of gains.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.2% to 13,096, the S&P 500 Index advanced 0.4% to 1,390 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3% to 2,967. With these gains, stocks closed the week at a three-month high and are now up over 10% on a year-to-date basis.
