Stocks Up For The Week, Dow And S&P At New All-Time Highs  Image: Bigstock Stocks closed mostly higher on Friday with only the Nasdaq missing out. But all of the indexes were up for the week. And the Dow and the S&P made new all-time highs in the process. Friday's Employment Situation Report came thru and positively surprised with 943,000 new jobs created last month (703K in the private sector and 240K in the public) vs. the consensus for 900,000 (750K in the private sector and 150K in the public). The unemployment rate beat expectations at 5.4% vs. last month's 5.9% and views for 5.7%. And the participation rate ticked higher, as expected, going from 61.6% to 61.7%. Moreover, last month's report was upwardly revised raising June's tally from 850K new jobs created to 938K. Given Wednesday's miss on the ADP Employment report where they estimated only 330K new private payroll jobs were created in July vs. expectations for 700K, Friday's strong showing was truly a surprise. And it underscores the strength in the economy even with the present challenges. That includes supply chain disruptions and worker shortages. But putting up numbers like this, in spite of the aforementioned challenges, suggests even bigger gains to come in the months ahead. And with extended unemployment benefits scheduled to end in September, and many of those who were incentivized to stay home now being 'forced' to return to work, that will begin to bring relief to both supply shortages and worker shortages while simultaneously easing inflation concerns as well. The top industries creating the most jobs in July were: Leisure and Hospitality (no surprise there) with 380,000 new jobs created; Education rose by 261,000; Professional and Business Services rose by 60,000; Transportation and Warehousing added 50,000; Healthcare was up by 37,000; Manufacturing was up by 27,000; Financial Activities was up by 22,000; and Mining increased by 7,000. In other news, earnings season continues to impress. And we'll get another 1,445 companies reporting this week.
And as usual, we've got a full set of economic reports on this week's docket as well. With stocks trading at or near their all-time highs, and with growth forecasts for the rest of the year expected to be even stronger, it looks like there's a lot more upside to go for both the economy and the markets. So make sure you're taking full advantage of it. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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