NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks added to records early Friday even as the Labor Department reported the US economy created just 148,000 jobs in December, far fewer than expected.
Economists had been expecting 200,000 new jobs or more last month, especially after payroll services firms ADP said Thursday that private hiring surged by 250,000 in the month.
Despite that disappointment, US equity investors have been in a bullish mood, bidding indices to a series of records in the first days of 2018 after President Donald Trump signed a massive tax cut into law in December.
About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 25,129.25, up 0.2 percent. The blue-chip index closed above 25,000 points for the first time on Thursday.
The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.2 percent to 2,729.49, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3 percent to 7,100.92.
Morgan Stanley dipped 0.2 percent after disclosing that fourth-quarter earnings will be dented by $1.3 billion in one-time costs mostly connected to taxes on repatriated earnings, part of the US tax reform.
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