New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange was up sharply on Friday after US employment figures improving but which do not show the overheating of the economy.

Around 2:30 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones Flagship Index rose 0.33% and the S&P 500 by 0.60%.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, climbed 1.15%.

The day before, the Dow Jones index had dropped 0.07% to 34,577.04 points.

The S&P 500 had dropped 0.36% to 4,192.85 points.

The Nasdaq fell 1.03% to 13,614.51 points, its biggest drop in three weeks.

The US economy created 559,000 jobs in May, twice as many as in April, a sign that the recovery is accelerating, but well below forecasts which were 720,000, showing that the labor market is still far from its level before the pandemic.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 6.1% the month before.

"At least May is an improvement on the 278,000 job creations in April, but, with employment still 7.6 million below its pre-pandemic peak, it would take more than 12 months at this rate to completely eradicate the deficit, "noted Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics.

The economist stressed that at this rate "it will take some time before the + substantial progress + demanded by the Fed is achieved" and that the Central Bank considers it necessary to tighten its monetary policy.

Investors found some comfort there in the sense that the need to reduce Fed asset purchases "could be delayed," TD Ameritrade's JJ Kinahan told AFP.

This slower than expected rate of job creation "does not change the whole situation, but the timetable" for a tightening of monetary policy "may not be as rapid as it was thought".

In addition, Kinahan added, "inflationary pressures appear to have eased somewhat, at least in the short term" as the rise in commodity prices has subsided.

Yields on 10-year Treasuries immediately fell after the US Department of Labor figures were released, falling to 1.57% from 1.63% just before the announcement.

The dollar, which had strengthened the day before against the euro, also immediately fell (-0.37%) to 1.2171 dollar per euro.

The information technology sector (+ 1.61%) and the communication services sector (+ 1.07%), highly represented in the Nasdaq index, and very sensitive to fears of inflation and the outlook monetary policy tightening rebounded sharply.

© 2021 AFP