U.S. equity and bond markets are closed on Friday, July 3 for the observance of the Independence Day holiday.
Markets advanced in Asia on Friday following a Wall Street rally driven by strong jobs data.
Tokyo’s Nikkei picked up 0.7 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.9 percent, China’s Shanghai Composite jumped 2 percent.
European markets are open and trading. London’s FTSE is down 1.1 percent, Germany’s DAX is sliding 0.6 percent and France’s CAC is off 1 percent.
In Thursday’s Wall Street session, the S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent, its fourth-straight gain, ending the holiday-shortened week with a gain of 4 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq climbed 0.5 percent.
The U.S. government said employers added 4.8 million jobs to their payrolls in June for the second-straight month of growth. The unemployment rate remains very high at 11.1 percent, but last month’s improvement was much better than economists expected.
Many workers across the country are still experiencing economic pain, with only about a third of the 22 million jobs lost to the recession recovered so far.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil for August delivery slipped 62 cents to $40.03 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 83 cents Thursday to settle at $40.65 a barrel. Brent crude oil for September delivery dropped 64 cents to $42.50 a barrel.
