Volatility In Markets Decreases Following US Jobs Report - Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

U.S. stocks settled higher on Friday, ending a four-session losing streak following the release of jobs report.

The U.S. economy added 261,000 jobs last month, beating average economist estimates of 205,000 jobs. The U.S. unemployment rate came in at 3.7%, missing the 3.5% level economists had projected. Wages were up 4.7% year-over-year and increased 0.4% from September.

Shares of Starbucks Corporation SBUX jumped on Friday after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results.

The Nasdaq 100 jumped 1.56% to close at 10,857.03 on Friday, amid a decline in shares of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Microsoft Corporation MSFT. The S&P 500 rose 1.36%, while the Dow Jones jumped 402 points to settle at 32,403.22 in the previous session.

For the week, the Dow, however, lost around 1.4%, while the S&P lost 3.3%.

All the major sectors on the S&P 500 closed on a strong note, with materials and financials stocks recording the biggest surge on Friday.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 3% to 24.55 points.

What is CBOE Volatility Index?

The CBOE Volatility Index, popularly known as VIX, is a measure of the equity market’s expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 index call and put options.



Image and article originally from www.benzinga.com. Read the original article here.