US stock market opens higher

By Ovunc Kutlu

NEW YORK (AA) - The stock market opened higher on Friday with strong macroeconomic data.

The Dow added 47 points to begin trading at 21,368 points, and the S&P 500 rose 6 points to 2,416 points.

The Nasdaq increased 27 points to begin the last trading day of the week at 6,116 points.

American economy added 222,000 new jobs in June, according to the U.S. Department of Labor earlier Friday. The market expectation was a 177,000 increase.

Job gains for April and May were also revised up by the Department of Labor.

New jobs for May were revised to 152,000 from 138,000, while April’s job gains were increased to 207,000 from 174,000.

This brought the last three-month average in new jobs up to 194,000.