Up for the third straight day

The US major indices are closing higher on the day with the NASDAQ index and the Dow industrial average leading the way with gains near 1%. That's good news. The not so good news is that the gains were much higher. The Dow industrial average was up 1.62% at its highs. The NASDAQ index was up 1.75%. The Russell 2000 index of low cap stocks was the big winner with a gain of 1.58%

A look at the provisional closing numbers shows:

  • Dow industrial average up 337 points or 0.98% at 34754.15. The high saw the Dow up 558.2 points
  • S&P index is up 36.28 points or 0.83% at 4399.83. The high saw the S&P up 67.04 points
  • NASDAQ index is up 152.1 points or 1.05% at 14654.02. The high saw the NASDAQ up 253.80 points
  • Russell 2000 rose 35.11 points or 1.59% at 2250.07

Other highlights for the day include:

  • Dow is 2% from its all-time high
  • NASDAQ is trading less than 5% from its all-time high
  • S&P is trading 3% from its all-time high
  • The Dow S&P and NASDAQ is now on track for a gain for the week

Tomorrow's stock market will be influenced by the US jobs report which is expected to show a gain of around 490,000 jobs (versus 235,000 last month). The unemployment rate is expected to dip to 5.1% from 5.2%.