Banks Pass the Stress Tests and the Labor Market Improves: Market Recap

The U.S. equity markets punctuated a historic week with strong gains on Friday, fueled by a better-than-expected labor market report. The Dow extended its record and closed at 14,397.10, while the S&P 500 ended the week within 1 percent of a record high.

At the close: DJIA: +0.47%, S&P 500: +0.45%, NASDAQ: +0.38%.

On the commodities front, Oil (NYSEARCA:USO) edged up to $91.87 per barrel. Gold (NYSEARCA:GLD) gained nearly $3 to $1,578.00 per ounce, while silver (NYSEARCA:SLV) climbed about half a percent to $28.95 per ounce.

The U.S. Labor Department reported on Friday morning that the headline U-3 unemployment rate declined from 7.9 percent in January to 7.7 percent in February, its lowest level since December 2008. Employers added 236,000 positions to their payrolls, a huge improvement over the average rate of 190,000 additions over the past four months, and well above consensus estimates for 165,000 additions.

However, there was some bad news lingering in the report. The number of long-term unemployed remained unchanged at 4.8 million, or 40 percent of the total unemployed. In addition, January’s increase of 157,000 was downwardly revised to just 119,000, although December’s number was revised from a gain of 196,000 to a gain of 219,000… (Read more.)