US stock rise defies disappointing jobs data

US stocks confounded expectations to push higher on Monday in their first trading session following last week's surprisingly weak jobs data.

The report, which was released on Good Friday when US markets were closed, showed the US economy created only 126,000 jobs last month, compared with the median forecast for a 245,000 reading. That is the biggest miss since December 2009.

The soft data, coupled with the lofty valuations of many US stocks, had prompted many to brace for a broad sell-off when Wall Street reopened on Monday.

Instead the main indices held their grounds. The S&P 500 rose 0.6 per cent to 2,078.65 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.5 per cent to 17,857.43. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite also rose 0.5 per cent to 4,908.73.

Among the movers, Garmin fell as much as 4.1 per cent to $44.57 after analysts at Citi downgraded the stock to "sell" from "buy" and slashed its price target from $68 to $42. The investment bank said the Swiss company, whose portable fitness tracker business has been helping to offset the decline in its traditional GPS device business, would probably miss earnings and sales expectations in its first quarter, as competitors such as Apple and Fitbit muscle in on the fitness space with new offerings.

"We now believe competitive pressures are likely to start eroding Garmin's stronghold in the GPS fitness watch business which generated around 60 per cent of Garmin's fitness sales last year," Citi said.

Shares in uniQure surged more than 45 per cent to $33.21 after the biomedical company struck a deal with pharma heavyweight Bristol-Myers Squibb that values it at nearly $600m. Under the terms of the agreement, Bristol-Myers will, among other things, acquire an initial stake of 4.9 per cent in the company at $33.84 a share in exchange for exclusive access to uniQure's gene therapy technology.

Tesla Motors, whose shares have fallen some 30 per cent since hitting a high of 286.04 last September, rallied 8 per cent to $206.23 after it reported on Friday a 55 per cent increase in deliveries in the first quarter of this year.

Ventas gained 5.4 per cent to $77.15 after it agreed to buy hospital operator Ardent Medical Services for $1.75bn in cash. Ventas said the deal would bring 14 hospitals into its portfolio, which it believes will increase its normalised funds from operations by 8 to 10 cents a share in the first year after the purchase closes.

Shares in energy companies followed oil prices higher. Both Brent and WTI were up some 3 per cent on Monday after Saudi Arabia increased prices on the oil it sells in Asia, a decision that signals rising demand in the region. Transocean led the gains, advancing 4.2 per cent to $15.60. It was followed by Halliburton, which rose 2.1 per cent to $44.87 and ConocoPhillips, up 1.8 per cent at $64.33. The S&P 500 energy index was the second best performing sector after utilities.

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