U.S. stocks traded higher this morning, with the Dow Jones index surging over 400 points on Friday.

Following the market opening Friday, the Dow traded up 1.17% to 38,673.45 while the NASDAQ rose 1.76% to 16,120.20. The S&P 500 also rose, gaining, 1.04% to 5,116.83.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Information technology shares rose by 2.5% on Friday.

In trading on Friday, energy shares fell by 0.6%.

Top Headline

U.S. employers added 175,000 nonfarm payrolls in April, marking a reduction from the upwardly revised 315,000 reading in March and missing the expected 238,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

The unemployment rate went from 3.8% to 3.9%, more than the expected 3.8%. Average hourly earnings edged down from 4.1% to 3.9% compared to April 2023, falling more than the expected dip to 4%.

Equities Trading UP
                       

• Safe & Green Holdings Corp. SGBX shares shot up 70% to $5.03 after the company announced its SG Echo subsidiary is preparing to deliver its first sustainable modular unit to a prominent quick-service restaurant customer in the Pacific Northwest.
• Shares of Vaxxinity, Inc. VAXX got a boost, surging 33% to $0.1377 after falling 9% on Thursday. Vaxxinity recently announced its intention to voluntarily delist and deregister its Class A common stock.
• WideOpenWest, Inc. WOW shares were also up, gaining 29% to $4.90 after the company received an unsolicited non-binding preliminary proposal from DigitalBridge Investments and various Crestview entities to purchase all of the outstanding shares of WOW! that Crestview does not currently own for $4.80 per share in cash.

Equities Trading DOWN

• AEON Biopharma, Inc. AEON shares dropped 51% to $1.64 after the company announced that the preliminary top-line results from its interim analysis of its Phase 2 trial with ABP-450 did not meet its primary endpoint.
• Shares of Sprout Social, Inc. SPT were down 30% to $33.67 after the company reported worse-than-expected first-quarter revenue results on Thursday.
• Marin Software Incorporated MRIN was down, falling 19% to $2.5399 after the company reported a year-over-year decrease on first-quarter revenue results.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.5% to $79.38 while gold traded down 0.1% at $2,306.70.

Silver traded down 0.5% to $26.685 on Friday, while copper rose 1.2% to $4.5370.

Euro zone

European shares were higher today. The eurozone's STOXX 600 rose 0.4%, Germany's DAX rose 0.5% and France's CAC 40 gained 0.6%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index gained 0.1%, while London's FTSE 100 rose 0.5%.

The unemployment rate in the eurozone came in at a record low level of 6.5% in March. The S&P Global UK services PMI rose to 55 in April from 53.1 a month ago. France's government budget deficit shrank to EUR 52.78 billion in January-March 2024 compared to EUR 54.72 billion in the year-ago period, while France's industrial production declined 0.3% month-over-month in March.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mixed on Friday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumping 1.48% and S&P BSE Sensex falling 0.98%.

Retail sales in Hong Kong fell 8.6% year-over-year in March versus a 0.5% gain in the prior month..      

Economics

• U.S. employers added 175,000 nonfarm payrolls in April, marking a reduction from the upwardly revised 315,000 reading in March and missing the expected 238,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.
• The unemployment rate went from 3.8% to 3.9%, more than the expected 3.8%. Average hourly earnings edged down from 4.1% to 3.9% compared to April 2023, falling more than the expected dip to 4%.

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