Stock Market Today: S&P 500 and Nasdaq Hit Records as Jobs Growth Slows

An uptick in the unemployment rate amid a cooling labor market could accelerate the Fed's rate-cut timeline.

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stocks ended a holiday-shortened trading week with fireworks after signs of a slowing labor market raised the odds of a Federal Reserve rate cut coming sooner rather than later.

The cannonball in the market's pool Friday was the June jobs report, which revealed a still strong but cooling labor market. U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 206,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, or essentially in line with economists' forecast for the creation of 200,000 jobs. Additionally, the surprisingly strong May jobs report was revised lower to 218,000 new hires from the 272,000 previously reported.

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Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.