Stock Market

With investors encouraged by a government report that job losses were less than expected, U.S. stocks rose broadly. This is great news for those trying to keep their investment accounts in check despite the ups and downs the stock market has seen since the financial crisis.

About the Jobs Report

On Friday, the Labor Department announced that nonfarm payrolls fell by 36,000 in February. This is compared to a revised 26,000 drop in January. This is great news to economists who expected that the drop would be closer to 75,000 due to the massive storms that hit the East Coast in February.

Other great news on the job front, the unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent. This is much better than the 9.8 percent increase that economists expected.

U.S. Stocks Increased

While U.S. stocks are always a minute-to-minute affair, they rose on Friday morning with the unexpected news that job losses were not nearly as bad as economists thought they would be:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 89 points (or 0.9 percent) to hit 10533.25 on Friday morning.
• The Nasdaq Composite index was up 1.1 percent at 2316.89.
• The S&P 500 stock index climbed 1 percent to 1134.80.

In our still turbulent economy, just about anything can make stocks fall,which is whyinvestors are happy that some increases in U.S. stocks were seen. However, the great numbers for job losses may be turned around in March, economists believe, since weather will most likely not play a role in company decisions during the month.

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) closed at an impressive 10,680.7 points, rising 0.5 percent, or 53 points. This marked the highest closed for the Dow since Oct. 1, 2008; however, the market at a whole still isn't completely stable.

Stocks Fluctuating a Bit

After a one-day selloff on Tuesday, investors on Wednesday began snatching up tech and financial shares, this despite the possibility of Google shutting down its China operations. Stocks did fall on Tuesday, but rose again on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 index (SPX) rising 9.5 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 1,146 and Nasdaq composite (COMP) gaining 26 points, or 1.1 percent, to close at 2,308.

Making Gains Won't Be Easy This Year

Portfolio manager at Glenmede, Robert Siewert, who was interviewed by CNNMoney.com, noted that gains will be harder to come by this year. He explained after the huge selloff from investors after the financial crisis, we were lucky to have a huge recovery.

However, now that we're back at home base, many people will be more interested in simply working with their liquid funds, rather than making risky investments with no promise of gains. The only problem is that without investments, the market as a whole will make no gains.

He explained the momentum of the market is good, but still needs a push toward the fundamentals of investing, something we lost after the financial crisis. He hopes that seeing improved company profit reports will get the market back on the right track.

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