Stocks edge up after jobs report shows more strength

Stocks edge up after jobs report shows more strength

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Stocks nudged higher on Friday, headed for a reprieve from losses as jittery investors digested the crucial monthly jobs report and kept one eye on surging oil prices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) put on roughly 0.1%, or 20 points, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) added 0.3% on the heels of its worst single-day fall since February. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.4%.

As Yahoo Finance’s Josh Schafer reported, the US labor market continued to impress in March. Employers added 303,000 jobs, much more than economists expected, while the unemployment rate ticked back down to 3.8%. Wage growth also met expectations.

The major gauges slumped on Thursday as oil prices hit their highest levels in six months, spurring worries about a boost to inflation, and a panoply of Federal Reserve speakers rattled faith in an interest-rate cut coming any time soon.

Nerves in the market are running high, going by this week’s bumpy action in stocks. Investors are juggling economic releases and corporate news alongside growing tensions in the Middle East.

Oil prices held near multimonth highs on Friday, building on the big gains notched amid escalating Israel-Iran tensions. Brent crude futures (BZ=F), the international benchmark, hovered just below $91 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate futures (CL=F) changed hands at $86.60.

Live8 updates

  • 4.7 magnitude earthquake strikes East Coast

    A preliminary 4.7-magnitude earthquake struck the East Coast of the United States on Friday morning.

    According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the earthquake was reported about 5 miles east of Lebanon, New Jersey at about 10:23am ET.

    “My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X, confirming shakes were felt across the state.

    Rumblings have also been reported across areas from Philadelphia to Boston.

  • Stocks trending in morning trading

    Here are some of the stocks leading Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page during morning trading on Friday:

    Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): Shares of the healthcare giant fell 0.3% Friday morning after announcing a $12.5 billion to buy Shockwave Medical (SWAV), in a bid to broaden its portfolio of medical devices used to treat heart diseases. Shockwave gained nearly 2% on the news.

    Krispy Kreme (DNUT): The doughnut and coffeehouse chain benefited from a Piper Sandler upgrade, with shares rising nearly 5%. The upgrade came after the announcement of a national partnership with McDonald’s (MCD). Piper Sandler analysts called the collaboration a “game changer,” upping Krispy Kreme’s price target from $14 to $20.

    Solana (SOL-USD): The cryptocurrency fell 7% Friday as Bitcoin and other digital currencies experience price volatility with just over two weeks remaining before the digital asset is expected to undergo its “halving” event, which will half the reward for mining bitcoin. Halvings reduce the rate at which new coins are created and therefore lower the available amount of new supply.

    HubSpot (HUBS): Shares of the online marketing software company rose 3% following a Reuters report that Google Parent Alphabet is in talks with its advisers to acquire it. The potential deal would be Alphabet’s largest acquisition, with HubSpot claiming a market value of roughly $35 billion.

  • Stocks edge up after strong March jobs report

    Stocks ticked upward at the start of the trading day on Friday, as investors digested an impressive March jobs report showing more than 300,000 jobs added, while monitoring surging oil prices.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) put on roughly 0.1%, or 20 points, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) added 0.3% on the heels of its worst single-day fall since February. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) gained 0.4%.

  • Here is Wall Street’s new highest price target on Netflix

    The Netflix (NFLX) rally is just beginning, contends Pivotal Research analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak.

    Wlodarczak hiked his price target on Netflix shares by $65 to a Street high $765 this morning, projecting about 24% upside from current levels. Shares are up 27% year to date.

    At the core of the revised price target are higher assumptions around subscriber growth and average revenue per user. Wlodarczk believes Netflix has “solid momentum” around each metric given its unrivaled content offering. Wlodarczk says:

    “In the end, our positive investment view remains unchanged, Netflix has won the streaming wars and their continued strong subscriber/average revenue per user and free cash flow generation should drive the shares higher. The key for Netflix going forward is to press their advantages and keep the flywheel going because the larger they get the more leverage they have over their peers, content creators, the better their product gets (allowing them to drive subscriber/average revenue per user growth) and the bigger the moat grows around their core business model.”

  • PepsiCo comes into focus as a safe-haven

    One stock that hasn’t stunk up the joint in the past month is PepsiCo (PEP).

    Shares are up 2.6% over the last four weeks, out-performing the S&P 500’s 0.3% gain. Coca-Cola (KO) has dropped 0.9%.

    Jefferies analyst Kaumil Gajrawala appears to be doubling down on the stock’s move today, adding PepsiCo to the firm’s “Franchise Picks” list (removing Colgate).

    Gajrawala sees several catalysts for the stock: 1) an international business that is likely to surprise to the upside due to its scale — it represents about 40% of PepsiCo’s overall business; 2) a long runway in the snacking category; 3) the potential for above-average profit margins to be fueled by the beverage and snacks business, and lower costs.

    “There is a lot to like,” Gajrawala says.

    I caught up with PepsiCo’s chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta at the World Economic Forum in late January. The below video gives you a good flavor on what his team is up to for this year.

  • Big call on Uber out of Jefferies

    Jefferies sees Uber’s (UBER) stock riding only higher.

    Uber’s price target got bumped to $100 from $95 by its analyst John Colantuoni this morning, which assumes about 33% upside from current levels.

    The call looks logical to me, as it centers on Uber’s ability to gain new customers by offering new mobility product tiers. Colantuoni says:

    “Uber has dramatically expanded mobility offerings in recent years, increasing the portfolio from just two products in 2011 (UberX/Black) to ~20 currently. Addressing more use cases allows Uber to capture new users and drive increased frequency through multi-product adoption, which also expands the total addressable market by providing a substitute for more driving occasions.”

    The stat backing up Colantuoni’s call: Bookings from new mobility products hit $8.5 billion in 2023, up from $2.3 billion in 2021.

  • Watch this one area in the jobs report, says Goldman Sachs

    The immigration impact.

    Goldman Sachs has been doing some good work of late around the economic impact of immigration on the US economy, and its team has continued that analysis ahead of today’s March jobs report.

    Chief economist Jan Hatzius estimates that non-farm payrolls rose by 240,000 in March — above consensus of 213,000 — in part due to a boost in the supply of immigrant workers.

    Here’s some of Hatzius’ thinking on the issue:

    “Elevated immigration boosted labor supply by roughly 80,000 per month last year, relative to normal, and we expect a continued tailwind averaging 50,000 per month this year. We expect an even larger boost for March in particular because of an influx of foreign-born jobseekers that had not found jobs as of February (241,000 newly unemployed workers since November).

    “Given the still-elevated level of job openings and the ramp-up of the spring hiring season, we assume many of these labor force entrants found jobs during the March survey period. On this basis, immigration could conceivably contribute anywhere from 50,000 to 290,000 to job gains in tomorrow’s report, relative to normal.”

    Immigration influx impacting the US labor market.

    Immigration influx impacting the US labor market. (Goldman Sachs)

  • And we are watching Nvidia

    Eyes on market leader Nvidia (NVDA).

    The stock has dropped below its 20-day moving average amid the broader market sell-off. Naturally, any time an investor darling like Nvidia is lagging, it warrants concern. Many on the Street will say something akin to, “As goes Nvidia, as goes the market.”

    They wouldn’t be wrong.

    Good chart on this thread from EvercoreISI’s Julian Emanuel. He highlights how Nvidia’s stock under-performed last summer, and it weighed on the broader market. He hints the pattern may be starting again.

    As goes Nvidia, as goes the market.

    As goes Nvidia, as goes the market. (EvercoreISI)



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