Despite being hit with some seriously unfavorable employment data today, Wall Street made strong gains to close out the week today.

The DOW was up 2.7% today, the NSADAQ inched up 2.9%, and the S&P posted a rise of 2.7%.

Earlier in the day, it appeared as though we may be in store for a sell off when the Labor Department released unemployment data for January. In its report, it said that January saw another 598,000 people lose their jobs. On the whole, the country is now looking at a total unemployment rate of 7.6%. At this rate, the country’s unemployment is running at its highest level since 1992.

OIL: While the stock market was able to shrug off the unemployment data today, oil traders did not, and pushed oil prices down under $40 a barrel today, before settling at $40.17. On the week, oil prices were down by 3.7%.

We will pick up again next week and see if the market’s optimism carries over after the weekend.

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