Dow ends up 100 points, stocks post solid weekly gains ahead of Labor Day

U.S. stocks closed mostly higher on Friday, capping off a week of gains before the Labor Day holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.33%
rose about 116 points, or 0.3%, ending near 34,838, according to preliminary FactSet data, while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.18%
gained 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
-0.02%
ended virtually flat. Investors cheered signs of slowing in the labor market, with an August jobs report showing the U.S. added more jobs for the month, but the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8% from 3.5% a month before. So far, the U.S. has added almost 26 million jobs in roughly three years, a figure that’s about equivalent to the size of Australia’s economy, according to BlackRock. For the week, the Dow gained 1.4%, the S&P 500 added 2.5% and the Nasdaq climbed 3.3%, according to FactSet.