By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising toward records Friday following the latest sign that the nation’s job market is doing better than economists expected.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% and was on track to top its all-time high after a report said U.S. employers added 115,000 more jobs than they cut last month, even though the war with Iran is raising fuel costs and uncertainty for everyone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 75 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% higher and heading for its own record.
While hiring slowed from March’s level, it was nevertheless nearly double what economists expected. And it kept the S&P 500 on track for a sixth straight winning week, which would be its longest such streak since 2024. The U.S. stock market has blasted higher since late March, in part on hopes that the war will not mean a worst-case scenario for the global economy and that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to allow oil tankers to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf again.
It’s still to be determined if those hopes are warranted or just wishful. The United Arab Emirates said Friday that it responded to another Iranian missile barrage, hours after the United States said it traded fire with Iranian forces in the Strait of Hormuz, in the latest blows to a shaky month-old ceasefire.
But economists said the latest jobs data was encouraging, particularly given that it followed a stronger-than-expected report for March. That stretch of time saw the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil spike from roughly $70 in late February to as high as $119 as the fighting and closure of the Strait of Hormuz kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf.
On Friday, Brent rose 0.6% to $100.65 per barrel after drifting between small gains and losses earlier in the morning.
Another big factor helping to support the U.S. stock market despite the war’s uncertainties is the strong profits that companies have been reporting for the start of 2026.
Monster Beverage jumped 13.2% after the energy drink maker joined the parade of companies topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue for the latest quarter. It benefited from strong growth outside the United States, and total net sales there made up about 45% of its total, the highest percentage ever for it.
Akamai Technologies leaped even more, 18.2%, after its results squeaked past expectations. It announced a $1.8 billion deal to provide cloud infrastructure services to an unnamed client over seven years. The cybersecurity and cloud computing company is benefiting from the surge in investment in artificial-intelligence technology.
Such voracious demand for AI helped CoreWeave report revenue for the latest quarter that was more than double what it was a year earlier, but its net loss was worse than analysts expected. It also gave a forecasted range for revenue in the current quarter whose midpoint fell below analysts’ expectations. The stock of the company, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, fell 8.9%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Germany’s DAX lost 0.8%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.9% for two of the bigger losses.
South Korea’s Kospi was an exception, and it inched up 0.1% to another all-time high.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased and remained lower after a report suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is still stuck near its lowest level since 2022. Consumers told the survey from the University of Michigan they’re concerned about both high gasoline prices and tariffs, though their expectations for inflation in the coming year softened by a bit.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.35% from 4.41% late Thursday and from 4.45% early this week.
Lower yields can bring down rates for mortgages and other kinds of loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which in turn can give the economy a boost. Lower yields also tend to push upward on prices for stocks and other kinds of investments.
The 10-year Treasury yield, though, remains well above its 3.97% level from just before the war.
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
