By Dow Jones Stocks snapped a two-week losing streak Friday as a surge in General Electric nudged the Dow Jones Industrial Average back above 10,000, marking its first weekly close above that level since the early days of the credit crisis. Through most of the session, the market was stuck in a tight range between positive and negative territory but ended with a narrow gain. The Dow (DJI) rose 17.46 points, or 0.2%, to 10,023.42, up 3.2% on the week The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) was up 0.3% to 2112.44, up 3.3% on the week. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) rose 0.3% to 1069.30, up 3.2% on the week. Other markets showed a push into less-risky assets. U.S. gold futures topped $1,100 an ounce for the first time, settling at $1,095.10. Treasury prices were higher. Energy stocks lagged the broader market, hurt by a more-than-$2-a-barrel drop in oil prices as commodity traders bet on weak fuel demand following the jobs report. Oil futures settled down $2.19 to $77.43 a barrel in New York. Consumer stocks benefited from the prospect that lower fuel prices might give Americans' greater leeway to spend on other items. Starbucks (SBUX) was particularly strong, rising 7.2% after the coffee retailer raised its earnings outlook for next year and reported a $150 million fiscal fourth-quarter profit. Oil majors Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) were among the declining Dow components. Sunoco (SUN), which reported a drop in earnings and poor margins on Thursday, was the biggest decliner among energy companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. (SPX). Tesoro (TSO) and Hess (HES), other big energy refiners, were also losers. Declines in the Dow and in the broader market were led by financials and energy firms, including J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM). For energy firms, a more than $2 a barrel drop in oil prices weighed on the sector. Much like the stock market, oil prices were weighed down by the October jobs report. Almost half the Dow's point gain on Friday could be attributed to a 6.2% surge in component GE (GE) after analysts at both Sanford C. Bernstein and Oppenheimer upgraded the conglomerate to an "outperform" rating. The GE-owned business television network CNBC reported that its parent is near a deal to sell its 80% stake in NBC Universal to Comcast. Comcast shares were up 2.8%. Though the Dow has closed above 10,000 several times this fall, it hasn't finished a full week of trading above that level since the period ending Oct. 3, 2009. In particular, the blue-chip measure has been plagued in recent weeks by a lack of conviction that has often led to profit taking around the 10,000 level, fueled by investors' fears about the pace of the U.S. economic recovery. Though those jitters didn't carry the day on Friday, they were kept simmering by disappointing readings of consumer credit and employment. The Labor Department reported a bigger decline than expected in U.S. payrolls for October and a jump in the unemployment rate to 10.2%, its highest level since 1983. Though the pace of month-to-month job losses is slowing, unemployment rolls have swelled by 8.2 million people since the start of the recession in December 2007. On Wall Street, market players grumbled about the unemployment news but didn't see it as cause for all-out panic, with many investors growing accustomed to such bad news after 22 straight months of job losses. Also, the pace of month-to-month losses is now slowing, which bulls take as a sign that a full-blown turnaround in the job market is on the way, perhaps as early as the first quarter of next year. However, it will take any renewed growth spurt a long time to make up for the damage that's already been done, with unemployment rolls up by 8.2 million people since the start of the recession in December 2007. Such sobering long-term measures have made some investors jittery lately about the prospects for consumer spending and corporate profits. "What I don't like about the numbers today is that we're seeing more people out of work for longer," said portfolio manager Kim Caughey, of Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh. "We've seen some employment in the [weekly filings of new jobless] claims numbers, but when we get these payroll reports, we're not seeing the people who were already on the rolls come off." Notably, September's nonfarm payrolls report was revised to a decline of 219,000 jobs from the previously reported 263,000-job decline. Strategist Steve Charest, of Divine Capital Markets in New York, characterized the jobs report as offering neither big disappointments nor sufficient reason for him to abandon his view that the market is due for a correction over the next few months, with major indexes apt to shed perhaps half their gains from the March lows before resuming a trend higher. "In a recession driven by the sort of problems we've seen in the financial sector, you'd expect the unemployment rate to top out around 11%," said Charest. "I try to keep in mind that figure was hit in the early 80's, and aside from high rates breaking the back of inflation, things then were pretty good compared to what we've had recently."
