NEW YORK, May 6 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks posted gains for the first week of May, as investors mainly cheered over strong corporate earnings and economic reports.
For the week, the blue-chip Dow rose 0.3 percent, and the broader S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 0.9 percent.
On the economic front, the U.S. total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 211,000 in April, better than market estimates, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.4 percent, said the Labor Department on Friday.
In April, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to 26.19 U.S. dollars. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 65 cents, or 2.5 percent.
Investors had been looking forward to April jobs report after March's numbers disappointed Wall Street.
Traders kept a close eye on the nonfarm payrolls to gauge whether the U.S. central bank could stay on its current path towards monetary policy normalization.
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rates unchanged earlier this week as it waited for more data to assess the U.S. economic outlook. But the Fed policymakers hinted at a possible rate hike in June.
Market expectations for a June rate hike were 78.5 percent, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool Friday.
In the week ending April 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 238,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 257,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
The 4-week moving average was 243,000, an increase of 750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 242,250.
U.S. private sector employment increased by 177,000 jobs from March to April on a seasonally adjusted basis, above the market consensus of 175,000, according to the March ADP National Employment Report released on Wednesday.
The Automatic Data Processing (ADP) figure is widely seen as a pre-indicator for the non-farm payrolls report due on Friday.
In addition, U.S. personal income increased 0.2 percent in March, slightly less than market expectations, according to the Commerce Department Monday.
In March, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased 5.7 billion dollars, or less than 0.1 percent.
The manufacturing index, also known as the purchasing managers index (PMI), registered 54.8 in April, below market estimates and a decrease of 2.4 percentage point from the previous month reading of 57.2, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in a report on Monday.
In corporate news, shares of Facebook Inc. fell nearly one percent on Thursday, even though the social media networking website delivered better-than-expected first-quarter results.
Apple posted better-than-expected adjusted earnings per share on Wednesday, but iPhone sales missed analyst expectations.
This earnings season has been strong so far. The latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2017 are expected to rise 14.7 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 7.2 percent.
