Stock Markets: Opening Surge then Fall Based on Positive Numbers from Department of Labor Jobs Report

Dow opens up 170 points at the opening bell before falling back. After over a 500 point loss in the stock markets on Wall Street on Thursday, global markets also felt a ripple effect with the decline in stocks. While the London exchange was down earlier today, some good news out of the U.S. may stabilize the markets today.

Prior to the opening bell on the NYSE and the NASDAQ, the futures markets responded favorably to the job reports from the U.S. Government Department of Labor. Numbers from the government labor report showed continued improvements over some of the positive moves from June.

The Jobs report for July did not have any significant change in the overall unemployment rate, still holding just over 9%. However, other numbers in the jobs report were very positive.

The Average Work Week held steady at 34.3 hours per week for July as it was in June. Average Hourly Earnings were up by .4% for July, and had been unchanged in June.
The big improvements were seen in Non-Farm Payroll and the Private Sector Jobs numbers.

For non-farm payroll the original June numbers were revised. Originally the June numbers were up by 18,000 jobs and have since been revised to an increase of 46,000 jobs for the month of June. On top of that improvement, the report shows that non-farm payroll increased by another 117,000 jobs.

Private Sector Jobs for the month of July increased by 154,000. This increase comes on the heels of an 80,000 increase in jobs during the month of June.

While it is unlikely that the jobs report numbers will be able to fully make up for the losses suffered in the stock market prices yesterday on a Friday, it should be enough to help stabilize the markets before the weekend. Gold and Silver remain strong investment options for a lot of investors looking for more stable alternatives to the volatile global stock markets.