U.S. stocks finished higher Friday, as investors received a much stronger-than-expected jobs report. In world markets, European stocks ended higher, led by the FTSE 100 in Britain rising 1.8 percent. Asian markets ended mixed, as the Shanghai Composite rose 0.8 percent and the Nikkei in Japan fell 0.5 percent. In U.S. economic news, the economy added 243,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said in its monthly jobs report. The unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent, reaching the lowest level since February 2009. Meanwhile, orders to U.S. factories posted a second consecutive monthly rise in December, the Commerce Department said. Orders for manufactured goods increased 1.1 percent in December following a 2.2 percent gain the previous month. The U.S. dollar fell against the euro and rose against the yen. Light sweet crude oil for March delivery rose $1.48 to $97.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures fell $19 to $1,736.80 an ounce. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 156.82, or 1.2 percent, to 12,862.23. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 19.36, or 1.5 percent, to 1,344.90. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 45.98, or 1.6 percent, to 2,905.66.
