NYSE
Stocks climbed again on Friday after an unexpectedly weak jobs report, which boosted bets that the Fed won't hike interest rates in September.

Stocks climbed again on Friday after an unexpectedly weak jobs report, which boosted bets that the Fed won't hike interest rates in September.

The S&P 500 gained 0.62%, cementing gains after ending the week having climbed above 7,700 for the first time and gaining over 3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite overperformed, increasing 1.30%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.28%. It is the second consecutive week of gains for the major indexes.

Medical technology company Doximity stood out in the session, soaring more than 30% after executives revealed that the company's new artificial intelligence search product is already generating exceptional profitability. The stock jumped more than 100% in premarket trading and declined throughout the session.

The rally was fueled less by Doximity's quarterly results, which exceeded Wall Street expectations, and more by what CEO Jeffrey Tangney described as the extraordinary unit economics of the company's newest AI product.

"It's early days on our AI search product, but I can tell you we're earning more than 10 times per search in revenue than it costs," Tangney said during the company's earnings call Thursday. He added that the economics could improve even further as artificial intelligence models become more efficient. "Over time, we probably expect the overall AI cost, if anything, to go down as models get more efficient, so we feel good about the unit economics there," Tangney said.

Elsewhere, traders increased their bets that the Federal Reserve won't hike interest rates in its next meeting after the jobs report. According to the CME Group's FedWatch gauge of futures prices, odds of a hike fell to 44% from 58.3%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics detailed that the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs last months.

The figure stands in sharp contrast with the 83,000 jobs analysts at the Dow Jones expected the market to add. Figures for May and June were also revised downward. The 12-month average now stands at 34,000.

Data showed that the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, compared to the 4.2% expected by analysts, but the labor force participation did so as well (61.4%) and touched the lowest level in more than five years.

Most of the drop was explained by the local government education sector, which lost 50,000 roles. Retail shed 19,000 and financial activities 14,000.

Healthcare, in contrast, added 22,000 roles, but stood below the 12-month average of 36,000.

Private-sector payroll processor ADP had also reported weaker-than-expected hiring growth for July, adding to concerns that employers remain reluctant to expand their workforces.

The Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged last week, but three member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted for an increase.