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On Friday, US stocks surged following the release of a strong March employment report. The US economy added 303,000 jobs last month, far ahead of economist estimates. Investors are closely watching to see if the robust jobs report will delay interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
The US stock market climbed on Friday as investors reacted to the positive March employment report and considered whether a resilient economy would delay interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. The US economy added 303,000 jobs in March, which was significantly more than economists had predicted (212,000). This helped push the unemployment rate down to 3.8% from 3.9%. Most of the hiring last month was concentrated in the leisure and hospitality, government, and healthcare sectors.
Economist Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics said that “The blockbuster 303,000 increase in non-farm payrolls in March supports the Fed’s position that the resilience of the economy means it can take its time with rate cuts.” This sentiment echoes comments from Fed President Neel Kashkari, who said yesterday that there may be no reason to cut interest rates at all this year. “If we have a run rate that’s very attractive, people have jobs, businesses are doing well, inflation is coming back down, why do anything?” Kashkari stated.
Here’s where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 am opening bell on Friday: commodities like West Texas Intermediate crude oil and Brent crude jumped by 45 basis points and 75 basis points respectively; gold also rose by approximately 6% to $2,315 per ounce; while Bitcoin dropped by about 7% to $66,979.
