Stocks End Higher for the Week

Stocks posted marginal gains for the week ended August 3, helped by Friday’s rally. Stocks surged on Friday as investors digested better than expected jobs report for the month of July.

All eyes were on central banks at the start of the week, with the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England scheduled to release their policy statements. Investors were hoping that central banks would announce monetary easing measures amid a slowdown in the global economy and worsening euro zone debt crisis.

Hopes of more action from the ECB were raised after its President, Mario Draghi, last week, said at an investment conference that the ECB will do whatever it can to protect the euro. However, the ECB disappointed investors on Thursday when it released its policy statement by not announcing any immediate action to contain the euro zone debt crisis.

Investors were also hoping that the Fed will hint at further monetary easing measures at the end of its two-day FOMC meeting. However, the Fed did not give any clues on further easing even though it said it was prepared to take action if needed.

Stocks struggled in the early part of the week as global central banks disappointed, but recovered on Friday as investors cheered better than expected jobs report for the month of July.

According to the figures released by the Labor Department on Friday, the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, beating forecasts of a gain of 100,000 jobs.

Helped by Friday’s rally, the Dow Jones rose 0.16% for the week. The S&P 500 gained 0.36% for the week, while the Nasdaq rose 0.33% for the week.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) shares were amongst the biggest loser for the week ended August 3. Shares of the social networking giant fell 11.03% for the week despite gaining 5.24% on Friday. FB shares are now down nearly 45% from their IPO price of $38 per share.

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Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.