NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. stocks rose slightly in early trading Thursday as investors look over a mixed report on the job market. While payrolls grew overall, many people gave up looking for work and wage growth stalled. Bond prices rose.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 23 points, or 0.1 percent, to 17,781 as of 10:16 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained three points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,080. The Nasdaq composite climbed five points, or 0.1 percent, to 5,018.
MORE JOBS: U.S. employers added 223,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate fell to a seven-year low of 5.3 percent. But the rate fell mostly because many people out of work gave up on trying to find a job and were no longer counted as unemployed. The report also said average hourly earnings rose 2 percent, slightly lower than consensus.
ONE VIEW: Thomas Simons, an economist at the investment bank Jefferies, wrote in a report that the wage numbers showed a “glaring sign of weakness.”
BOND BUYING: Investors bought bonds in anticipation that the inflation, and interest rates, will remain low. The price of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose, pushing down its yield to 2.38 percent from 2.45 percent just before the jobs report came out.