US, Global Stocks Higher Monday
NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. and global stocks rose in midday trading Monday after a gloomy jobs report last week led investors to expect that the Federal Reserve will postpone its first interest rate increase in nearly a decade. Energy stocks rose along with the price of oil.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 209 points, or 1.3 percent, to 16,687 as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 27 points, or 1.4 percent, to 1,978 and the Nasdaq composite rose 50 points, or 1.1 percent, to 4,758.
European stocks rose even more. Germany's DAX closed up 2.7 percent, France's CAC-40 index jumped 3.5 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 2.8 percent.
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ON HOLD: Last week's jobs report, which showed that hiring slowed down in September, is being taken as positive by investors who want the Fed to postpone raising interest rates. The Fed next meets at the end of this month and again in late December. Ultra-low interest rates in place since the 2008 financial crisis have helped push up stock prices.
ANALYST'S TAKE: "The absolutely weak nonfarm payrolls data complicated the Fed's resolve to raise rates this year," IG analyst Bernard Aw wrote in a report. "The soft jobs numbers in the last two months certainly make October rate (increase) an even more unlikely endeavor."
GE FIGHT: General Electric rose $1.03, or 4 percent, to $26.49 after activist investor Nelson Peltz disclosed he had accumulated a $2.5 billion stake in GE. Peltz is likely to put more pressure on GE's CEO Jeffrey Immelt to raise the company's stock price, which has lingered around $25-$26 a share for the last two years.
A, B, C, D, E, F, GOOGLE: Alphabet Inc., the new parent company of Google, rose $7.31, or 1.1 percent, to $664.30. Google announced earlier this year that it would reorganize. Alphabet will be the parent company, with Google being the largest subsidiary within Alphabet. This would allow investors to see how well Google's core business was doing, separate from its more experimental ventures like driverless cars. Monday was the first day the company started trading as Alphabet.
BACK AT THE HELM: Twitter rose $1.31, or 5 percent, to $27.63 after the company said it was moving its co-founder Jack Dorsey into the CEO position full time. Dorsey had been interim CEO since June.
ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude gained $1.18 to $46.72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy stocks broadly rose following the gains in oil prices. The energy sector in the S&P 500 rose 2.4 percent, far more than the broader market.
BONDS, CURRENCIES: U.S. government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.03 percent from 1.99 percent late Friday. The dollar rose to 120.42 yen. The euro fell to $1.1178.
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