Wall St little changed after payrolls report

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed shortly after the open on Friday, after a stronger-than-expected monthly payrolls report lent weight to a belief that the U.S. Federal Reserve would hike interest rates in June.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 257,000 last month, topping expectations for 234,000 jobs, and data for November and December showed a huge revision of 147,000 more jobs created than previously reported. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7 percent as a result of an increased labor force.

"It was decent, the revision was definitely good," said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis.

 

Traders added to bets the central bank would start to hike interest rates by mid-year after the report.

The utilities sector <.SPLRCU>, which had been used as a bond proxy by investors in the low rate environment, lost 1 percent as the worst performing S&P 500 sector. In contrast, financials <.SPSY>, which stand to see an increase in profits from higher rates, gained 1.1 percent.

"The Fed has got to be very careful, they know it, they are going to be pretty much going against what every other major central bank on the face of the earth is doing and they want to be just very, very careful."

Twitter jumped 12.7 percent to $46.52 after it beat Wall Street's profit and revenue targets in the fourth quarter.

LinkedIn surged 11.4 percent to $265.09 after the corporate networking site reported a higher-than-expected 44 percent jump in quarterly revenue as more businesses used its services to assess candidates for employment.

But action camera maker GoPro Inc tumbled 12.6 to $47.48 percent to $47.10 after it forecast a current-quarter profit that could miss Wall Street expectations and said its chief operating officer was resigning.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 22.71 points, or 0.13 percent, to 17,907.59, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 2.68 points, or 0.13 percent, to 2,065.2 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 1.45 points, or 0.03 percent, to 4,763.65.

According to Thomson Reuters data, of 306 companies that reported quarterly results in the S&P 500, 73.5 percent have topped Wall Street expectations, above the 69 beat rate for the past four quarters. The 6.4 percent expected growth for the quarter is down from the 11.2 percent growth expected on Oct. 1.

The S&P 500 <.SPX> is up 3.5 percent for the week, its best weekly performance since October, buoyed by a rebound in oil prices. U.S. crude gained 1.9 percent to $51.44 on Friday while Brent advanced 2.3 percent to $57.86, putting it on pace for its second straight weekly advance.

In merger news, Harris Corp said it would buy Exelis Inc in a deal valued at about $4.75 billion, combining two big suppliers to the U.S. military at a time when the government is squeezing spending on defense. Harris shares rose 11.3 percent to $77.35 while Exelis jumped 36.5 percent to $24.18.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,533 to 1,230, for a 1.25-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,171 issues rose and 1,148 fell for a 1.02-to-1 ratio favoring advancers.

The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 28 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 47 new highs and 9 new lows.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)