By Tanya Agrawal
REUTERS - Wall Street opened higher on Friday as Chinese stocks recovered, oil prices clawed back and data showed robust job growth in the United States.
Nonfarm payrolls surged in December and unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent. October and November payrolls were revised to show 50,000 more jobs created than previously reported, according to the report.
The upbeat suggested that a recent manufacturing-led slowdown in economic growth would be temporary.
Investors have been jittery as markets got off to their worst four-day start to a year and economists slashed fourth-quarter U.S. growth estimates.
At 9:38 a.m. ET (1438 GMT), the Dow Jones industrial average was up 77.15 points, or 0.47 percent, at 16,591.25, the S&P 500 was up 11.82 points, or 0.61 percent, at 1,954.91 and the Nasdaq Composite index was up 44.30 points, or 0.94 percent, at 4,733.73.
All 10 major S&P 500 sectors were higher with the consumer discretionary index's 0.95 percent rise leading the advancers.
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Apple shares snapped their three-day losing streak and were up 1.9 percent in early trading, giving the biggest boost to the S&P and the Nasdaq.
Friday's jobs report was the first since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last month for the first time in nearly a decade.
While various Fed officials have said four rate hikes in 2016 could be possible, economists and traders are pricing in two hikes, while reducing bets on a third hike by December.
The Fed meets next on Jan. 26-27.
"(The report) is one more sign the domestic economy continues to chug along," said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St. Louis, Missouri. "Maybe today investors will focus on the fact the world has more going on than China."
China nudged the yuan higher for the first time in nine days, while traders welcomed the country's decision to suspend a circuit breaker which halted trading twice this week.
The CSI300 index and the Shanghai Composite index both closed up 2 percent, capping off a week of tumult.
Oil prices rose modestly, boosted by the recovery in Chinese shares, but remained within reach of 11-1/2 lows.
Shares of Qorvo, were down 6 percent at $42.90, a day after the Apple supplier cut its revenue estimate for the third quarter.
Time Warner was up 3.3 percent at $72.50 after the New York Post reported that shareholders could push the company to sell itself or spin off its HBO business.
Sprint was up 5.9 percent at $3.55 after its CEO said the company was on track to achieve $2 billion-$2.5 billion in savings.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,097 to 589. On the Nasdaq, 1,842 issues rose and 490 fell.
The S&P 500 index showed no new 52-week highs and 6 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 4 new highs and 38 new lows.
(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)