There are no Dow stocks hitting 52-week highs. There are no Dow stock 52-week lows.

The Market

Premarket today, the Dow was indicated to open up +121 points.

Thursday the Dow closed up +617.75 (+1.82%) at 34,639.79.

Year-to-date the Dow is up +13.18%.

There were 23 Dow stocks up Thursday.

The Dow stock winners Thursday were led by Boeing (BA) 202.38 (+7.54%), American Express (AXP) 156.77 (+4.47%) and Visa (V) 198.29 (+4.28%).

The Dow stock losers Thursday were led by Walmart (WMT) 135.47 (-1.22%), Merck (MRK) 73.89 (-0.74%) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 157.09 (-0.63%).

The Labor Department’s before-the-bell release of its November data showed slowing jobs growth and a big miss compared to expectations. However the nation’s unemployment rate fell much more than expected.

The U.S. economy created just 210,000 nonfarm jobs in November, the government said Friday. That was much lower than the 573,000 reading that was projected. October was revised up to 546,000. The unemployment rate last month fell sharply to 4.2%, a positive sign compared to the smaller dip to 4.5% that economists had expected. Average hourly earnings, a measure of wage inflation, rose 4.8% year-over-year in November. That was slightly below estimates. Earlier this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank could speed up the tapering of its $120 billion per month bond-buying program, which it put in place to prop up the economy during the pandemic. Powell said the Fed will discuss the possible move at its December meeting.

The Food and Drug Administration is getting ready for a rapid review of omicron-specific vaccines and treatments should they be needed. The CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna told said that it will take a couple of weeks to gather enough data to determine what impact omicron’s mutations have on the effectiveness of the current vaccines.

Five U.S. states — Minnesota, Colorado, New York, Hawaii and California have now confirmed cases of omicron as scientists investigate whether the heavily mutated strain is more infectious and virulent.

President Joe Biden on Friday is expected to sign the newly approved short-term government spending bill. The legislation, which was swiftly passed by the House and the Senate on Thursday, forestalls a government shutdown for the time being, providing federal funding through Feb. 18. While preventing one fiscal crisis, lawmakers still need to avert another, figuring out how to increase the nation’s debt ceiling to pay its bills before Dec. 15. That’s when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the limit would be reached. It’s almost two weeks later than her initial forecast of Dec. 3.

U.S. futures are higher, European stocks are higher and Asian markets ended mostly higher.

The national average price of gasoline is down eight-tenths of a cent at $3.370 per gallon.

Earnings Reports

There are no Dow stocks set to report earnings in the near term.

Today’s Featured Dow Stock

Disney (DIS)

Disney (DIS) 147.20 (+3.55%) is down -18.75% in 2021.

Financial Calendar

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