NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks closed higher, but only after careening through another wild day. The S&P 500 rose 0.6% Friday after flipping between earlier gains and losses. It was a fitting ending to a brutal week of scary swings dominated by worries about the U.S. economy and uncertainty about what President Donald Trump will do with tariffs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.7%. Treasury yields also swung. They initially fell following a slightly weaker-than-expected report on U.S. jobs before climbing after the Federal Reserve’s chair said the economy looks strong enough to wait before cutting or raising interest rates.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is higher in late trading on Friday, but only after careening through another wild day. It's a fitting ending to a brutal week of scary swings dominated by worries about the U.S. economy and uncertainty about what President Donald Trump will do with tariffs.
The S&P 500 was up by 0.2% after flipping between an earlier gain of 0.8% and loss of 1.3%. It's coming off a punishing stretch where it swung at least 1%, up or down, in each of the last six days.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 112 points, or 0.3%, with little than a half-hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
The head of the Federal Reserve helped ease the market's worries when he said he thinks the economy looks stable at the moment, and he doesn't feel pressure to cut interest rates in order to prop it up.
Traders in recent weeks had been building bets the Fed would have to cut its main rate more than three times this year following a stream of weaker-than-expected reports on the economy. But Jerome Powell pushed back on speculation he and other Fed officials could feel pressure to act.
“The costs of being cautious are very very low” right now, he said about holding steady on interest rates. “The economy is fine. It doesn’t need us to do anything really. We can wait, and we should wait.”
A highly anticipated jobs report released Friday morning may have given him leeway to do just that. The U.S. Labor Department said employers added 151,000 more jobs last month than they cut. That was slightly below economists’ expectations, but it was an acceleration from January’s hiring.
Recent, discouraging surveys had shown souring confidence for U.S. businesses and households because of uncertainty around Trump's tariffs, and economists were waiting to see if Friday's report would show if that was translating into real pain for the economy and job market.
“To sum it up: today’s print wasn’t as bad as feared,” according to Lindsay Rosner, head of multi sector fixed income investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Some economists, though, also warned the jobs data included concerning details underneath the surface that could imply trouble ahead. The number of people working part time who would rather be full time rose 10% in February from January, for example.
“The market might breathe a sigh of relief that the labor market was still looking healthy, but a deeper dive shows that spring could be a more challenging season,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
The whiplash actions from the White House on tariffs — first placing them on trading partners and then exempting some and then doing it again — have raised uncertainty for businesses.
That sparked fears that businesses might freeze in response to what they have called “chaos” and pull back on hiring. U.S. households, meanwhile, are bracing for much higher inflation because of tariffs, which is weakening their confidence and could hold back their spending. That would sap more energy from the economy.
Trump said Friday he wants tariffs to bring jobs back to the United States, and he gave no indication more certainty is imminent for financial markets. “There will always be changes and adjustments,” he said in comments from the Oval Office.
“There could be some disturbance,” Trump said about the effect on the economy before saying, “I solved a little bit of that” by giving a one-month reprieve on tariffs for Mexican and Canadian imports for automakers.
In the bond market, Treasury yields initially fell after the jobs report but rose after Powell's comments pushed traders to ratchet back expectations for four or more cuts to interest rates this year.
The 10-year Treasury yield fell as low as 4.22% after the jobs report before climbing to 4.31%, up from 4.28% late Thursday. It's been generally sinking since January, when it was nearing 4.80%, as investors have ratcheted back their expectations for the U.S. economy’s growth.
On Wall Street, Walgreens Boots Alliance rallied 7.5% after the pharmacy and drug store chain agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners. The buyout would take the struggling chain private for the first time since 1927 and give it more flexibility to make changes to improve its business without worrying about Wall Street’s reaction.
Broadcom rose 7.9% after delivering stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The chip company also gave a forecast for upcoming revenue that topped analysts’ expectation, thanks in part to strong demand for its artificial-intelligence offerings.
They helped offset Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which slumped 12.3% after reporting profit for the latest quarter that fell just short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Antonio Neri acknowledged that “we could have executed better in some areas in the quarter,” and the company gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that was weaker than expected.
Costco sank 6.8% after the retailer reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than expected.
In stock markets abroad, German stocks lost 1.8% to give back some of their gains from earlier in the week following a seismic shift in its policy on debt. The traditionally debt-averse German government appears willing to allow for much more borrowing.
Indexes also fell across much of the rest of Europe and Asia.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Stan Choe, The Associated Press