Stock market heads higher after jobs report

News that U.S. employers added workers at a good clip for the fourth month in a row helped push the stock market higher Friday. Hertz plunged after saying it would need to restate three years of financial results because of accounting errors.

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained eight points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,948 as of 2:35 p.m. on Wall Street. The benchmark for most investment funds reached another all-time high the day before. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 78 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,915, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 22 points, 0.5 percent, to 4,318.

EMPLOYMENT PICTURE: Before the market opened, the Labor Department said employers added 217,000 jobs to their payrolls in May, in the range of what economists had expected. The unemployment rate stayed put at 6.3 percent. Wall Street's forecasters had expected it to inch up.

REACTION: "It's another positive sign, along with retail sales, housing and everything else we've been seeing," said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade. "There's nothing in this report to slow this market down, but all everyone has wanted to talk about is why the market is going to fall."

RENTAL REDO: Hertz slumped after the car-rental company said in a regulatory filing that it needs to correct its financial results for the past three years because of accounting errors. Hertz Global Holdings dropped $2.72, or 9 percent, to $27.77.

BIG DEBUT: Arista Networks soared in its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Arista raised $225 million from investors in its initial public offering late Thursday, selling more than five million shares at a price of $43 each. The company makes networking equipment for cloud computing and had reportedly delayed its IPO after tech stocks took a beating in April.

Arista's stock jumped $13.67, or 32 percent, to $56.71.

NICE RUN: The S&P 500 is on track to set record highs in eight of the last 10 days and to gain more than 1 percent for the third week running.

This week, signs that the U.S. economy shook off a rough winter and big steps by the European Central Bank to revive the region's growth gave investors reasons for optimism. Separate reports showed manufacturing picking up in the world's two largest economies, the United States and China. A survey of the U.S. service industry, which employs roughly nine out of every ten workers, showed a rise in new orders, production and hiring.

EUROPE: Major European markets climbed Friday. Germany's main stock index, the DAX, rose 0.4 percent to a record high. Both France's CAC 40 and Britain's FTSE 100 closed with gains of 0.7 percent.

SHOPPING: After the market closed Thursday, Gap reported higher sales in May thanks to its Banana Republic and Old Navy brands. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 1 percent, much better than analysts' forecasts. Gap rose 80 cents, or 2 percent, to $41.98.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was unchanged from late Thursday at 2.59. Yields fall when bond prices rise. The price of oil rose 25 cents to $102.73 a barrel.