U.S. market indexes ended the week higher on Friday. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18543.53 for a gain of 191.48 points or 1.04 percent. The S&P 500 was also higher, closing at 2182.87 for a gain of 18.62 points or 0.86 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed higher at 5221.12 for a gain of 54.87 points or 1.06 percent. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 11.25 for a loss of -1.17 points or -9.42 percent.

Friday’s Market Movers

 On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation report for July. The Employment Situation report showed an increase in hiring of 255,000 jobs for the month of July. The report beat consensus of 185,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9 percent.

Other reports on the economic calendar included international trade, the Baker-Hughes Rig Count and Consumer Credit. The deficit in international trade expanded to $44.5 billion. The Baker-Hughes Rig Count was also reported with an increase of four rigs in North America. Consumer credit increased by $12.3 billion with an increase of $7.7 billion in revolving credit and $4.6 billion in non-revolving credit.

Stocks trading actively for the day included the following: Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Chesapeake Energy, Apple, Ford and Citigroup.

In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the following companies led gains on Friday:

Gains (percent)
Merck & Co Inc  MRK      10.41
JPMorgan Chase & Co    JPM       2.7
Goldman Sachs Group Inc             GS          2.56
American Express Co      AXP        2.47
Nike Inc B            NKE        1.93
Apple Inc             AAPL     1.52
United Technologies Corp            UTX        1.3
International Business Machines Corp     IBM        1.21
Intel Corp            INTC      1.16
Microsoft Corp  MSFT     0.99

Top sectors for the broad market were financial, consumer discretionary, industrial and technology. In technology the following stocks led gains for the day:

Gains (percent)
Symantec Corp  SYMC    4.07
The Priceline Group Inc  PCLN     3.99
Netflix Inc            NFLX      3.85
Baidu Inc ADR    BIDU      2.97
Seagate Technology PLC                STX         2.78
NetApp Inc         NTAP     2.53
Western Digital Corp      WDC      2.53

In commodities, gold traded lower as evidenced by the SPDR Gold Trust which reported a loss of -2.32 points or -1.79 percent. The dollar was higher for the day as the U.S. Dollar Index gained 0.45 points or 0.47 percent to 96.24.

Small-Cap Stocks

In small-caps, the Russell 2000 Index was higher at 1231.30 for a gain of 17.54 points or 1.45 percent. The S&P 600 Small-Cap Index was higher at 746.67 for a gain of 9.81 points or 1.33 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index was higher at 7504.77 for a gain of 89.14 points or 1.20 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index was higher at 8770.13 for a gain of 97.09 points or 1.12 percent.

Other Notable Indexes

Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index closing at 1562.55 for a gain of 15.58 points or 1.01 percent; the S&P 100 Index closing at 966.92 for a gain of 7.98 points or 0.83 percent; the Russell 3000 Index closing at 1289.60 for a gain of 11.23 points or 0.88 percent; the Russell 1000 Index closing at 1208.93 for a gain of 9.98 points or 0.83 percent; the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index closing at 620.60 for a gain of 2.57 points or 0.42 percent.