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August 01, 2014 at 07:11 AM
(Bloomberg) — U.S. equities fluctuated, after erasing early declines, as data showed the economy added fewer jobs than forecast without stoking wage inflation and manufacturing expanded in July.
LinkedIn Corp. jumped 11 percent after projecting revenue that beat analysts’ estimates. Procter & Gamble Co. increased 3.6 percent as the world’s largest consumer-products maker reported profit that topped estimates amid cost reductions. GoPro Inc. slid 9.6 percent after reporting a wider quarterly loss than a year earlier.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 1,934.41 at 10:09 a.m. in New York, after tumbling 2 percent yesterday. S&P 500 futures dropped as much as 0.7 percent earlier today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 8.07 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 16,555.23, after erasing its gains for the year yesterday.
“It was in line and it didn’t give the market any reason to sell off any further,” Bill Schultz, who oversees $1.2 billion as chief investment officer at McQueen, Ball & Associates in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said in a phone interview. “No new scare was given in terms of the wage component. It was enough for the moment to not make it worse for the market.”
Employers in the U.S. added more than 200,000 jobs for a sixth straight month in July, the longest such period since 1997. The 209,000 advance fell short of the 230,000 increase forecast by economists.
The jobless rate climbed to 6.2 percent from 6.1 percent in June as more people entered the labor force. Wages and hours were unchanged from June.
Interest Rates
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said the Federal Reserve will remain accommodative with wage growth in the U.S. unchanged.
Wages “are not raging,” Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said during a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. “American wages on Main Street are Janet Yellen’s number one concern.”
Concern has grown that the improving economy may force the Fed to raise interest rates sooner than expected. Data earlier this week showed U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 4 percent annual pace in the second quarter, confirming the Fed’s view that a first-quarter contraction was transitory.
Manufacturing expanded in July at the fastest pace in more than three years, showing U.S. factories will help power the economy after a second-quarter rebound. The Institute for Supply Management’s index increased to 57.1, the highest since April 2011, from 55.3 a month earlier, the Tempe, Arizona-based group’s report showed today.
