US stock market closes higher oil jumps almost 5 percent
Date
3/5/2016 12:20:00 PM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) >The U.S. stock market closed higher Friday with a push from positive domestic economy and a jump in crude oil prices.
The Dow Jones industrial index rose 63 points to close the day at 17006. The Nasdaq increased 10 points to end the day at 4717 and the S&P 500 rose 7 points to close at 1999.
It is the third straight week that all three indexes closed with weekly gains.
The rise in indexes came after the announcement that the economy added 242000 new jobs in February beating expectations of 190000 jobs.
The unemployment rate held steady at 4.9 percent last month its lowest level since February 2008.
President Barack Obama said American businesses have created new jobs for 72 straight months adding 14.3 million new jobs to the economy.
"America’s workforce is growing at the fastest pace since the year 2000. It is showing the kind of strength and durability that makes America’s economy right now the envy of the world despite the enormous headwinds that it’s receiving because of weaknesses in other parts of the world" he said.
Meanwhile the rise in oil prices also had a positive impact on the stock market with international benchmark Brent crude up 4.9 percent to reach $38.92 per barrel at the close of trading.
The American benchmark West Texas Intermediate rose 4.86 percent to $36.23. American oil fields company Baker Hughes announced that the number of oil rigs in the U.S. fell by 8 to 392 the eleventh straight week with a the decline in rig count pushing oil prices higher.
Overall oil prices have been also on the rise this week amid talks that Venezuela Qatar Saudi Arabia and Russia are expected to hold another meeting mid month to discuss details of a production freeze with the possibility of including more oil producing countries into the agreement.
The biggest stock gainer Friday was Chesapeake Energy. Shares of one of the largest U.S. natural gas companies rose by almost 19 percent after an increase of 26 percent Thursday and 23 percent Wednesday when its former CEO Aubrey McClendon was killed in a car crash following an indictment on antitrust charges.
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