Positive US jobs report entices buyers back

US stocks rallied at midday yesterday after a positive weekly jobs report enticed buyers back into the market for some post-Christmas shopping for stocks.

Around 11.30am ET, the Dow Jones industrial average, up 86.45 to 8534.56, the Nasdaq composite, up 14.10 to 1386.57 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index, up 8.10 to 900.57, all rose more than 1%.

The latest update on the labour market showed a significant decline in the number of people filing for unemployment benefits over the past week. Jobless claims for the week that ended December 21 dropped an adjusted 60,000 to 378,000 from 438,000 in the previous week.