Wall Street Grinds Higher at Opening, Shaking Off Jobs Report; Dow up 150 Pts By Investing.com

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened higher on Friday, building on Thursday’s record-high close and on course for their best weekly performance since November – despite a labor market report for January that had little to cheer about. 

By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 150 points, or 0.5%, at 31,206 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2%.

Earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics had said that the U.S. economy had added a modest 49,000 nonfarm jobs in January. While that was in line with early estimates, it was well short of expectations that had risen since Wednesday, when private payroll processor ADP had estimated a net addition of 174,000 jobs in in the month.

The numbers were a reminder of the deep hole in which the labor market finds itself as a result of the restrictions on businesses and social gatherings due to lockdown measures across the nation. However, for some in the market, they were more important for again underlining the importance of a comprehensive relief package from Congress. As such, they promised to weaken resistance to some of the spending measures contained in the $1.9 trillion package making its way through Congress now. 

The Senate completed voting on amendments to the bill just before dawn on Friday after an all-night session. Biden is set to meet with representatives of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives later Friday to speed its passage through the lower chamber.

Among early movers. Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ:PTON) stock stood out with a 6.1% drop after the maker of connected exercise bikes warned that it couldn’t keep up with demand due to production bottlenecks. The window of peak demand for Peloton bikes may begin to close later this year as the rollout of vaccines allows gyms to reopen.   

Standing out in the other direction was GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock, which gained 46% on a fresh wave of enthusiasm from retail traders  The videogame and accessory store had lost over 40% on Thursday, closing below the level that some of its long-term backers see as fair value. AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) stock, which also spiked over the last week due to an acute short squeeze driven by retail traders, rose 9.0%. The moves came as Robinhood, a fee-free online brokerage popular with retail traders, lifted its remaining restrictions on buying the two stocks.

News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) was another big gainer, rising 9.7% to the highest since Rupert Murdoch spun off his ‘old media’ assets from Fox Corp. in 2013. The publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones had its most profitable quarter in that timeframe at the end of 2020.

Elsewhere in the videogames sector, Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ:ATVI) stock rose 11% after a welter of broker upgrades in the wake of its quarterly report this week. Wedbush, Evercore ISI and Piper Sandler (NYSE:PIPR) all raised their target prices while Raymond James initiated coverage with a target price of $120, some 18% above its current level.