Traders on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Source: CNBC
Stock futures climbed overnight trading on Sunday as investors cheered a strong rebound in US job growth last month amid accelerating vaccine rollouts.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 136 points. S&P 500 futures were up 0.4% and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.2%.
The Department of Labor reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose 916,000 in March, the highest since August 2020, while the unemployment rate fell to 6%. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected an increase of 675,000 and an unemployment rate of 6%.
“This reflects lifting restrictions, ramping up vaccinations and boosting fiscal stimulus,” said Anu Gaggar, senior global investment analyst at Commonwealth Financial Network. “Faster jobs and wage growth could put upward pressure on prices and test the Fed’s patience with a simple monetary policy.”
Wall Street started the month of April with a strong rally. The S&P 500 jumped more than 1% for the first time on Thursday to cross the 4000 threshold, bringing its gains to 7% in 2021.
Last week’s strength came after President Joe Biden introduced his multi-billion dollar infrastructure proposal, which focuses on rebuilding roads, bridges and airports, expanding broadband access and boosting the use of electric vehicles and updating the country’s electricity grid. The plan is partly funded by an increase in the corporate tax rate to 28%.
However, the plan has met opposition from Republicans as the $ 2 trillion plan includes initiatives that they say go beyond traditional infrastructure issues.
Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri urged the Biden administration on Sunday to reduce the package to about $ 615 billion and focus on physical infrastructure such as roads and airports.
Senate leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said last week that Biden’s plan would not receive Republican backing and pledged to oppose the broader Democratic agenda.
On the pandemic front, the US reported another daily record of new Covid vaccinations on Saturday, pushing the weekly average of new injections per day above 3 million.