U.S. Stocks Recover From Early Weakness To Close Little Changed

(RTTNews) - After coming under pressure early in the session, stocks showed a notable turnaround over the course of the trading day on Friday.

The major averages climbed well off their early lows, eventually ending the session mixed. While the Dow inched up 34.87 points or 0.1 percent to 34,429.88, the Nasdaq dipped 20.95 points or 0.2 percent to 11,461.50 and the S&P 500 edged down 4.87 points or 0.1 percent to 4,071.70.

The early weakness on Wall Street came following the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report, which showed stronger than expected job growth in the month of November.

The report said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 263,000 jobs in November after surging by an upwardly revised 284,000 jobs in October.

Economists had expected employment to shoot up by 200,000 jobs compared to the addition of 261,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent in November, unchanged from October and in line with economist estimates.

While the report points to continued strength in the labor market, the data has added to lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates.

The Federal Reserve is likely to slow the pace of interest rate hikes as early as next month, but continued labor market tightness may still lead the central bank to raise rates higher than currently anticipated.

Semiconductor stocks recovered from their worst levels of the day, but the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index still fell by 1.2 percent.

Banking and computer hardware stocks also moved to the downside, while tobacco, steel and oil service stocks rallied.

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly lower during trading on Friday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index slumped by 1.6 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index fell by 0.3 percent.

The major European markets also moved to the downside on the day. While German DAX Index closed just below the unchanged line, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.3 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

In the bond market, treasuries recovered from an early sell-off to end the day modestly higher.. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, dipped 2.3 basis points to 3.506 percent.