Bloomberg
(10/01) -- U.S. stocks rose as data showed payrolls in December
increased at the slowest pace since January 2011, easing concern that
the Federal Reserve may accelerate the pace of stimulus cuts.The
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 0.2 percent to 1,841.71 at
9:31 a.m. in New York. The S&P 500 has dropped 0.3 percent so far in
2014 after climbing 30 percent last year, the most since 1997.The
74,000 gain in payrolls, less than the most pessimistic projection in a
Bloomberg survey, followed a revised 241,000 advance the prior month,
Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast
of 90 economists called for an increase of 197,000. The unemployment
rate dropped to 6.7 percent, the lowest since October 2008, as more
people left the labor force.
