New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange ended the week up sharply on Friday, supported by an employment report surpassing expectations and a further increase in oil prices.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 1.22% to 28,015,706 points, approaching its record reached in late November.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological color, took 1.00%, to 8,656.53 points, and the expanded index S & P 500 rose by 0.91% to 3,145.91 points.

Over the week as a whole, the Dow Jones yielded 0.13% and the Nasdaq 0.10%, while the S & P 500 was 0.16%.

With 266,000 jobs created in November, a figure well above the projections of economists (+182,000), the US labor market continued to show insolent health.

While the rise is partly due to the reinstatement of General Motors (GM) employees after their historic strike, the increase remains dramatic, according to Quincy Krosby of Prudential.

"It was expected that there would be job creation after the strike at GM, but there were concerns that this would not be enough to quell the fears of an economic slowdown," notes the expert .

These better-than-expected figures "help to understand that US consumption is doing well, especially since hourly wages have also increased slightly," adds Krosby.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% (-0.1 point), a low in 50 years.

Donald Trump hastened to welcome these figures soon after the publication of the report, tweeting: "A REPORT ON EXTRAORDINARY EMPLOYMENT!"

The many job creations and the low unemployment rate in the United States could also encourage the Federal Reserve (Fed) to maintain its interest rates at its monetary policy meeting next week.

According to the CME trading platform tool, the vast majority of investors expect the Fed to keep its rates unchanged.

New York indexes also benefited Friday from the rise in oil prices, which came after the announcement by OPEC and its allies of new cuts in production.

"Companies in the energy sector have seen their shares grow after this decision," said Krosby.

On the trade front, China and the United States adopted a rather peaceful tone Friday after a week of conflicting signals.

Beijing has announced that "some" imports of US soybeans and pork would be exempt from customs duties.

Donald Trump's chief economic adviser told him that a trade deal "is still close" while refusing to comment on the next wave of punitive US tariffs that are expected to come into effect on December 15.

In the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt was 1.838% around 21:20 GMT, up from its previous day's close (1.810%).

© 2019 AFP