Stocks Open Higher even as Payrolls Disappoint

U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday even as the December jobs report came in much weaker than anticipated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lately climbed 21.89 points, or 0.13%, to 16,466.65. The S&P 500 gained 2.10 points, or 0.11%, to 1,840.23 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 4.57 points, or 0.11%, to 4,160.77.

U.S. employers hired the fewest workers in almost three years in December. Nonfarm payrolls rose only 74,000 last month, the smallest increase since January 2011, and the unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage point to 6.7 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday.

Alcoa Inc.’s quarterly results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The company reported adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 4 cents a share on revenue of $5.59 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expected 6 cents a share on revenue of $5.36 billion.

Target says email address, phone numbers and more of up to 70 million people were taken. While sales were ‘meaningfully weaker’ than expected after the breach, it has seen a recent improvement.

Tiffany & Co. said its holiday sales rose 4% following growth in all regions, while mall-based peer Zale Corp. also posted a slight uptick. Sales for the two months ended Dec. 31 at luxury brand Tiffany rose to $1.03 billion, or 8% on a constant-currency basis, while same-store sales increased 6%.