Stocks gain for 4th straight week
Wall Street manages to finish higher Friday despite the weak March jobs report.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks rallied Friday, finding momentum at the end of a choppy session influenced by a wretched March jobs report, bringing the recent advance to four straight weeks.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) gained almost 40 points, or 0.5%. The S&P 500 (SPX) index added 8 points or 1%. The Nasdaq composite (COMP) added 19 points, or 1.2%.
Since hitting 12-year lows on March 9, stocks have been on a tear with all three major gauges rising at least 20%.
For the four-week period ended Friday, the Dow has gained 21.5%, making it the blue-chip indicator's best four-week run since May 1933, when it gained 31%.
The stock market has been rising on hopes that the worst has happened and that some of the government's attempts to help the financial sector and economy will work.
Employment is a lagging economic indicator and is usually the last to recover. Investors are aware of this and were therefore able to take the jobs report in stride, said Len Blum, managing director at Westwood Capital.
"The markets have had a bit of a 'the sky is falling' fear built into them, but that's not been the case," said Blum. "We've been in a really bad recession and I don't think we'll get out of it until 2010. It's going to be lackluster for a while but the sky is not falling."
Recent reports on housing and manufacturing have given investors hope that those sectors are closer to bottoming. Meanwhile, government efforts to stabilize the economy continue. This week, leaders of the world's 20 largest economies pledged over $1 trillion to boost the International Monetary Fund and agreed to better monitor the global financial system.
Jobs report: Employers cut 663,000 jobs from their payrolls in March, after cutting a revised 651,000 in the prior month. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 650,000 job cuts.
The unemployment rate, generated by a separate survey, rose to 8.5% from 8.1% in February, in line with estimates. (Full story)
In other economic news, the Institute for Supply Management released its services sector index for March. The index fell to 40.8 from 41.6 in the previous month. Economists thought it would rise to 42.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke Friday afternoon at a symposium in North Carolina. He discussed the Fed's balance sheet and reiterated that the Fed would use every available tool to help the economy.
Company news: IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA, Fortune 500) are in the late stages of a deal for IBM to buy Sun for $9.55 a share, according to published reports. That's about $1 less than the figure previously floating around. IBM shares gained 1.4% and Sun shares rose 3.4%.
Research in Motion (RIMM) reported higher quarterly earnings that beat estimates late Thursday. The BlackBerry maker also forecast first-quarter profit that are above analysts' current estimates. The stock jumped 20.8% and was among the Nasdaq's most-actively traded.
Market breadth was positive. On the New York Stock Exchange, winners beat losers by two to one on volume of 1.48 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, advancers topped decliners eight to five on volume of 2.14 billion shares.
Bonds: Treasury prices tumbled, raising the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.89% from 2.77% Thursday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Lending rates mostly dropped. The 3-month Libor rate dipped to 1.16% from 1.17% Thursday, according to Bloomberg.com. The overnight Libor rate fell to 0.27% from 0.29% Thursday. Libor is a bank-to-bank lending rate.
Other markets: In global trading, Asian markets mostly ended higher and European markets mostly ended lower.
In currency trading, the dollar fell versus the euro and gained against the yen.
U.S. light crude oil for May delivery fell 13 cents to settle at $52.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
COMEX gold for June delivery fell $11.60 to settle at $897.30 an ounce. 
