Dow Jones Rockets 800 Points on Blockbuster Jobs Report. Boeing Stock Soars, Apple Price Target Raised
The estimates for the direness of the job market in May turned out to be overly pessimistic. On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported an increase in nonfarm payrolls of 2.5 million for the month of May, nowhere close to the decline of 8 million jobs that economists were expecting. May's unexpected improvement came after more than 20 million jobs were shed in April due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The unemployment rate was also far better than expected, coming in at 13.3% in May. That's down from 14.7% in April, and well below forecasts calling for an unemployment rate of nearly 20%. The surprise gain in jobs sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) flying on Friday. By 11 a.m. EDT, the Dow was up about 3.1%.
Almost every stock in the Dow was up, some substantially so, due to no other reason than the strong jobs report. Boeing (NYSE: BA) fit into that category, posting a double-digit gain on no company-specific news. Meanwhile, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock got a small boost from some optimistic analyst commentary.
Source Fool.com
