The Dow surges 500 points as a weaker jobs report raises hopes for interest rate cuts

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major stock indexes opened sharply higher on Friday morning as the U.S. saw weaker-than-expected jobs growth in April. That raised investors’ hopes of an economic cooling that might make the Federal Reserve comfortable enough about inflation to cut interest rates in the months ahead.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. added 175,000 jobs in April, falling short of the anticipated 235,000 gain and slowing down from the 315,000 jobs added in March. The unemployment rate rose to 3.9% last month. The report comes two days after the Fed suggested it won’t raise interest rates this year as inflation remains elevated above its 2% target.

The Dow quickly jumped more than 500 points after markets opened, before giving some of those gains back to trade up 363 points, or almost 1%, by mid-morning. The S&P 500 gained about 0.8% and the Nasdaq rose 1.6%.

Apple stock jumped 7% Friday morning following the company’s better-than-feared second-quarter earnings report the day before.

And crypto exchange Coinbase and Jack Dorsey’s Block reported blockbuster earnings reports on Thursday, sending Bitcoin’s price back above $61,000 on Friday morning.