Stock market mixed as wages rise at fastest pace in nearly a decade

Traders
work on the floor of the NYSE in New York
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

• Stocks climbed Friday for a fourth day on the back of trade
  optimism.
• The US added more jobs than expected in October, and wages
  rose at the fastest pace in nearly a decade.
• 
  Follow the US indexes in real
  time here.
  

Stocks were mixed Friday as the
prospect of cooling trade tensions buoyed the mood on Wall
Street, following the latest signs of a tightening labor market
and expectations for rising rates.

The Dow Jones
Industrial Average rose 0.5%, or more than 100 points. The
Nasdaq
Composite fell 0.5%, and the S&P
500 climbed 0.3%. Analysts are cautiously optimistic after
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he plans to meet with
Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a multilateral summit this
month.

Earnings season continued with

Apple posting a disappointing forecast for the holiday season
Thursday evening.
Starbucks posted its strongest sales in more than a year and
topped revenue and profit estimates.  

All eyes were on the US jobs
report before the open, which showed hiring picked up more than
expected in October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the

economy added 250,000 jobs last month, compared with
forecasts of 200,000, and unemployment remained at a decades-low
rate of 3.7%. Wages rose at their fastest pace in nearly a
decade, up 3.1% from a year ago.

Ian Sheperdson, chief economist
at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said it’s clear the labor market is
strong enough to anticipate another rate increase by the Federal
Reserve this year. But he added the overshoot could have been
partly related to workers returning from Hurricane Florence and
Hurricane Michael.

“In one line: Solid across the
board, though hard to read the trends behind the weather noise,”
he said. “
Nothing in this
report will make the Fed think that skipping the Dec hike is a
good idea.”

The dollar pared Thursday’s
losses against a basket of currencies following the jobs report,
heading back toward its highest level in more than a year.
Investors ditched US government bonds, with yields on the 10-year
Treasury note rising 3.4 basis points to 3.178%. Bond yields move
inversely to prices.

Wall Street followed equity
rallies around the world, with the Shanghai Composite jumping
2.7% to its highest level in three weeks. The pan-European Stoxx
600 rose 0.9%, putting it on track for its best week since
2016.