The Nasdaq surged 266.99 points or 1.5% to 19,977.73, the S&P 500 shot up 82.53 points or 1.5% to 5,686.67 and the Dow jumped 564.47 points or 1.4% to 41,317.43.
Wall Street rallied post release of Labor department’s report on U.S. job growth that exceeded economic estimates. The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment shot up by 177,000 jobs in April. the jumps in employment in February and March were downwardly revised to 102,000 jobs and 185,000 jobs, respectively. The report also said the unemployment rate came in at 4.2% in April.
Buying interest was generated in reaction to indications China is open to trade talks with the U.S., with a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce saying U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed their willingness to negotiate with China on tariffs. The spokesperson said China is currently evaluating messages sent to it through relevant parties hoping to start trade talks. He/she also said the U.S. has to be prepared to "correct its wrong practices" and cancel unilateral tariffs if it wants to talk and warned failure to do so would show the U.S. has "no sincerity at all and will further damage the mutual trust between the two sides."
Apple tumbled by 3.7% after reporting its quarterly result. Airline stocks turned in as one of the market's best performances, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index soaring by 6.0%. Semiconductor stocks displayed substantial strength as reflected by the 3.5% surge by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Financial, pharmaceutical and software stocks too saw significant strength while telecom stocks were among the few groups to buck the uptrend.
Asia Pacific moved mostly higher. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index shot up by 1.0%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumped by 1.7%. The major European markets also showed strong moves upwards. The German DAX Index spiked by 2.6%, the French CAC 40 Index is surged by 2.3% and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index advanced by 1.2%.
In the bond market, treasuries extended yesterday's slump in reaction to the upbeat jobs data. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, jumped 9.1 bps to 4.32%.