NEW YORK - Telecommunications companies led a broad stock rally Wednesday after a report that private companies are continuing to add workers.
All ten sectors of the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index rose. AT&T Inc. led the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average with a 2.2 percent gain.
The Dow gained 71.60 points, or 0.6 percent, to 12,350.61. The S&P index rose 8.82, or 0.7 percent, to 1,328.26. The Nasdaq composite rose 19.90, or 0.7 percent, to 2,776.79.
The ADP National Employment Report said 201,000 new private sector jobs were added in March. That is roughly in line with the 210,000 analysts had expected. Investors were encouraged by a strong gain in small business hiring, said Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research.
The report showed "that things are not as bleak as they seemed a few weeks ago," Detrick said.
The ADP report is seen as a precursor to the government's March payrolls report due Friday, but the two reports don't always paint the same picture of the overall labor market.
Cephalon Inc. surged 28 percent, the most of any stock in the S&P index, after Valeant Pharmaceuticals International offered to take over the biopharmaceutical company for $5.7 billion in cash. Valeant, based in Canada, rose 12 percent. The takeover bid is the latest in a string of deal-related news, another positive sign for investors.
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