Investing.com - U.S. shares posted steady gains on Friday as President Donald Trump moved to roll back financial industry regulations, taking some of the heat away from a move to impose fresh economic sanction on business and people related to Iran's ballistic missile program as well as downbeat jobs data.
The Dow Jones rose 0.96%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.71% and the Nasdaq Composite increased 0.49%. Shares of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) fell 3.60% on disappointment over fourth-quarter revenue reported after the bell on Thursday.
Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury secretary to review the Dodd-Frank legislation and delayed implementation of the “fiduciary rule” that requires financial advisers and brokers who handle individual retirement and 401(k) accounts act in the best interest of their clients. Deregulation, proponents say, could improve the sector’s profitability, especially in an environment with rising interest rates typically good for banks.
Friday's report showed that January non-farm payrolls rose by 227,000 jobs, the largest gain in four months. But the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.8 percent and wages increased modestly, suggesting there was still some slack in the labor market that would keep inflation in check.
Elsewhere, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned more than two dozen Iranian, Chinese, and Emirati businesses and persons for supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program and named officers and business executives tied to Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for their suspected role in aiding the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah, and Tehran’s defense industries.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve held its fire on interest rates as widely expected on Wednesday, but was optimistic on the outlook for the economy in keeping its benchmark overnight lending rate target at 0.5% to 0.75% following a 25 basis point hike in December.
“Measures of consumer and business sentiment have improved of late,” the committee said in its statement, using new language that jibes with voices on Wall Street following the election of Trump as president.