The stock market rose to records Friday following the latest sign that the nation’s job market is doing better than economists expected.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index climbed 0.8% to an all-time high after a report said U.S. employers added 115,000 more jobs than they cut last month, even though the war with Iran is raising fuel costs and uncertainty for everyone. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 12 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.7% to its own record.
While hiring slowed from March’s level, it was still nearly double what economists expected. And it helped the S&P 500 close out a sixth straight winning week, its longest such streak since 2024. The U.S. stock market has been blasting higher since late March, in part on hopes that the war will not mean a worst-case scenario for the global economy and that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to allow oil tankers to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf again.
It’s still to be determined if those hopes are warranted or just wishful. U.S. forces fired on and disabled two Iranian oil tankers on Friday after exchanging fire with Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz overnight. It’s the latest flare-up in fighting to raise doubts about the tenuous month-old ceasefire that the United States has insisted is still in effect.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil rose 1.2% to settle at $101.29 following the latest volleys of fire. That’s below its heights above $119 during the war, but it’s still much more expensive than its roughly $70 level from late February before the fighting began.
One big factor supporting the U.S. stock market despite the war’s uncertainties is the strong profits companies have been reporting at the start of 2026.
Monster Beverage jumped 13.6% after the energy drink maker joined the parade of companies topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue for the latest quarter. It benefited from strong growth outside the United States, and net sales from there accounted for about 45% of total net sales, the highest percentage ever for the company.
Akamai Technologies leaped even more, 26.6%, after its results squeaked past expectations. It announced a $1.8 billion deal to provide cloud infrastructure services to an unnamed client over seven years. The cybersecurity and cloud computing company is benefiting from the surge in investment in artificial-intelligence technology.
Voracious demand for AI helped CoreWeave report revenue for the latest quarter that was more than double what it was a year earlier, but its net loss was worse than analysts expected. It also gave a forecasted range for revenue in the current quarter whose midpoint fell below analysts’ expectations. The stock of the company, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, fell 11.4%.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 61.82 points to 7,398.93. The Dow added 12.19 to 49,609.16, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 440.88 to 26,247.08.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Germany’s DAX lost 1.3%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.9% for two of the bigger losses.
South Korea’s Kospi was an exception, and it inched up 0.1% to another all-time high.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased and remained lower after a preliminary report suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is stuck near its lowest level since 2022. Consumers told the survey from the University of Michigan they’re concerned about both high gasoline prices and tariffs, though their expectations for inflation in the coming year softened by a bit.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.36% from 4.41% late Thursday and from 4.45% early this week.
Lower yields can bring down rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can give the economy a boost. Lower yields also tend to push upward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.
The 10-year Treasury yield, though, remains well above its 3.97% level from just before the war.
Choe writes for the Associated Press.
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