Stocks rise after better-than-expected jobs report to close out winning week; European markets close sharply higher on vaccine hopes, U.S. jobs surprise; BELEX15 up 0.26% as Komercijana gained nearly 5%; Unemployment in Serbia may hit 13% at the end of 2020.
Stocks rose on Thursday following a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report as the economy tries to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 92.39 points higher, or 0.4%, at 25,827.36. The Nasdaq Composite hit a record high, climbing 0.5% to 10,207.63. The S&P 500 also gained 0.5% to end the day at 3,130.01. Boeing contributed to the gains, rising 0.6% after the airplane maker completed recertification flights for its grounded 737 Max jet.
Wall Street started the session with sharp gains after the government reported that a record 4.8 million jobs were created in June. Economists were expecting 2.9 million jobs were created. The unemployment rate fell to 11.1% from 13.3% in May. Economists were expecting a rate of 12.4%, according to Dow Jones.
The Labor Department also said, however, that initial jobless claims rose by 1.427 million in the week ending June 27. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected initial U.S. jobless claims to rise by another 1.38 million, down from 1.48 million the week earlier.

European stocks closed sharply higher Thursday on positive news around a potential coronavirus vaccine and better-than-expected U.S. jobs data.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 provisionally closed about 1.9% higher, with banks jumping 4.5% to lead gains as all sectors and major bourses remained in positive territory.
The euro zone unemployment rate in May came in at 7.4%, up from 7.3% in April as the region grappled nationwide lockdowns in a bid to contain the pandemic.

Serbian BELEX15 was up 0.26% as Komercijana Banka advanced 4.9%. This was also the most traded name with RSD 11.9m in volume. All other names were far less active.
The gradual recovery of economic activity in Serbia started in May, but the deterioration of the labour market will continue throughout the second half of this year and probably for part of 2021, and will mainly affect the formal labour market, according to a bulletin published by the Faculty of Economics and the Foundation for the Development of Economic Sciences (FREN). Since a decline in the GDP by one percentage point leads to an increase in unemployment of 2-4 percentage points and since Serbia expects to see an economic decline of 3%, it can be assumed that the unemployment rate will be on average around 12.5% this year, and at the end of this year and the beginning of next year, it could grow to between 13 and 14%, the report says. The unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2020 was 9.7%.
Source: CNBC, Ilirika