Stocks Surge Despite Big Job Losses

Stocks surged Friday despite a worse than expected October jobs report and news that GM (NYSE: GM) is running out of cash.

The economy shed 240,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate spiked to a 14-year high of 6.5%, and the Labor Department also reported that job losses in prior months were 179,000 worse than initially reported.

But after a two-day, 10% drop ahead of the report, stock indexes rebounded by nearly 3% on relief that the news wasn’t even worse after the credit markets seized up in mid-September.

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) was a casualty, though, plunging 12.6% after Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) said it isn’t interested in acquiring the company.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) contributed to the bullish tone with better than expected quarterly results.

But Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) and Hutchinson (NASDAQ: HTCH) tumbled on their earnings reports, and E*Trade (NYSE: ET) fell 8.6% on credit concerns and news that it will seek government bailout funds.

The Nasdaq rose 38 to 1647, the S&P rose 26 to 930, and the Dow surged 248 to 8943. Volume fell to 5.03 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.93 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 23-10 margin on the NYSE, and 17-10 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 71% on the NYSE, and 73% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 5-152 on the NYSE, and 5-179 on the Nasdaq.