US STOCKS-Wall Street jumps as historic job losses fewer than feared

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* US economy suffers Great Depression-like job losses
* Uber climbs as ride service bookings recover
* Apple to reopen some US stores next week
* Major indexes post weekly gains

(Updates to close of U.S. market)
By Lewis Krauskopf
May 8 (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes jumped on Friday
and logged solid gains for the week after data on historic job
losses due to the coronavirus crisis showed they were slightly
fewer than feared.
All 11 S&P 500 sectors were positive, led by the beaten-up
energy group .SPNY .
Gains in Apple AAPL.O shares also lifted the indexes after
the iPhone maker said it will reopen a handful of U.S. stores
starting next week. The U.S. economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the Labor
Department reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast
payrolls diving by 22 million, but the decline still marked the
steepest plunge since the Great Depression. “It's tough to call the jobs report, which is what everybody
was waiting for, anything but a complete calamity, but relative
to expectations you can see some silver linings in there,” said
Brian Nick, chief investment strategist at Nuveen, pointing to
the large number of temporary layoffs.
“Except for the initial panic in the month of March, in
general the markets are ignoring economic data for the most part
and are looking more at data related to COVID-19,” Nick said.
Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose
1.91% to end at 24,330.77 points, while the S&P 500 .SPX
gained 1.69%, to 2,929.77.
The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC climbed 1.58% to 9,121.32.
Financial markets on Thursday began pricing in a negative
U.S. interest rate environment for the first time, as investors
grappled with the economic consequences of the new coronavirus
outbreak. Stocks have staged a sharp rebound since late March from the
coronavirus-fueled sell-off, helped by massive monetary and
fiscal stimulus. The tech-heavy Nasdaq on Thursday erased its
2020 declines and turned positive for the year.
Investors are now watching efforts by a number of states to
spark their economies by easing restrictions put in place to
fight the outbreak.
"People are watching closely to just see how this reopening
process works," said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at
Truist/SunTrust Advisory Services.
"On the margin, you are starting to hear businesses say that
things are starting to look better from a depressed level.”
Optimism for markets was also fed by news that U.S. and
Chinese trade representatives discussed their Phase 1 trade
deal, with China saying they agreed to improve the atmosphere
for its implementation.