On Friday, Wall Street experienced gains as the latest data revealed that the U.S. economy had a lower-than-anticipated increase in job numbers for July. While Amazon’s better-than-expected earnings countered Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s tepid sales forecast.

Last month, the Labor Department’s information indicated that nonfarm jobs increased by 187,000. The data for June was adjusted downward to show 185,000 jobs added, which is lower than the earlier reported 209,000.

There was a 0.4% increase in average hourly earnings in July, which stayed the same as the previous month but was slightly better than expected. This raised concerns about the possibility of more interest rate increases before 2023 ends. This also maintained the year-to-year rise in wages at 4.4%.

Candice Tse, who is the global head of strategic advisory solutions at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), mentioned, “The job growth was lower than what was expected, and along with the increase in average hourly earnings, it shows that more work is required to close the gap between jobs and workers, slow down the growth of wages, and eventually bring down inflation.”

“The Fed has likely ended its most aggressive tightening campaign in generations, with a reasonable path to a soft landing.”

Amazon.com’s shares (NASDAQ:AMZN) increased by 9.4%. The company thinks it will do well in the next few months. But Apple’s shares dropped by 2.7% because the company, which makes iPhones, believes its sales will keep decreasing.

The prices of stocks from other companies such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Snowflake increased by various percentages, ranging from 2.1% to 5.4%.

According to a report from the Labor Department on Thursday, more Americans started asking for unemployment benefits last week. However, the number of people losing their jobs decreased to the lowest in 11 months during July.

On Friday, the interest rate on the 10-year benchmark note decreased slightly because of the new jobs information. However, it stayed close to its highest point in nine months. This happened partly because Fitch, a ratings agency, recently lowered the United States’ rating from AAA to AA+.

Around 9:36 in the morning (Eastern Time), the Dow Jones Industrial Average had increased by 122.46 points, about 0.35%, reaching 35,338.35. The S&P 500 was also up by 25.53 points, around 0.57%, and reached 4,527.42. At the same time, the Nasdaq Composite went up by 129.63 points, around 0.93%, reaching 14,089.34.

Stocks closed marginally lower on Thursday, weighed down by the last batch of economic data and disappointing earnings.

From the 392 companies in the S&P 500 that told everyone how well they did in the last few months by Thursday, almost 79.3% did even better than the experts expected. This comes from information collected by Refinitiv.

Shares of Tupperware (NYSE:TUP), known for its plastic airtight storage containers and bowls, rallied 43.8% on Friday after it finalized an agreement with its lenders to restructure its debt obligations in an effort to turn around its business.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) gained 3.8% after it reported a higher quarterly profit on strong sales of its cholesterol, osteoporosis and other drugs.

Sports-betting firm DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) shares surged 12.7% after it raised its fiscal year 2023 revenue outlook.

Meanwhile, two corporate and economic health measures were flashing red as shipping group Maersk reported a fall in global demand for sea containers and advertising giant WPP (LON:WPP) said clients in the U.S. tech sector were slashing their marketing spend.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 2.19-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 1.73-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 11 new 52-week highs and three new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 23 new highs and 19 new lows.